THE owner of ScottishPower has reported a 10% rise in revenues to €9.3 billion (£7.5bn) in the first quarter of the year but is reviewing its investment decisions to focus on debt reduction.
Spanish firm Iberdrola said that earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (ebitda) increased 4.1% to €2.4bn
Regulated business, which includes energy transmission and distribution, was up 8.9% and renewables by 2.8%.
The liberalised business covering the retail sale of electricity and gas grew by 2.7%. Net profit was up 0.7% to €1.02bn with net adjusted debt at €29.6bn.
Chairman Ignacio Galan signalled a scaling back of expansion plans to concentrate on bringing down debt.
He said: "We're going to revise all of our investments that aren't already allocated, focusing much more on our debt situation."
It is understood investments in Scotland, including £5bn of network improvements and various renewable projects, will be maintained. Ebitda from Spanish operations fell 10.1% and were hit by a 62% fall in the output of cheap hydro power and a near 1% fall in electricity demand due to the recession in the country.
International ebitda shot up 20.4% to €1.1bn boosted by strong performance in Brazil.
In the UK, production increased 3.2% while ebitda from regulated businesses rose 4.8% to €229.9 million.
The liberalised division was helped by a partial recovery in retail business which brought ebitda to €212.7m.
ScottishPower said it had benefited from cost efficiencies and lower input prices for coal and gas but demand has continued to drop with electricity dipping 3% and gas by 8%.
The utility said this was due to a milder winter than in the previous two years, greater energy efficiency measures from customers and less demand from manufacturing and industrial businesses.
In UK renewables, the gross margin grew by 48% with output up 58.1% as weather returned to more normal conditions.
Operational renewable capacity across Iberdrola increased by 6.5% to 13,398 megawatts. Group liquidity was €9.7bn enough to meet financing needs for 24 months.
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