Foresight Solar Fund - Optimising capital allocation

Foresight Solar Fund (FSFL) celebrated its 10-year anniversary of listing on the London Stock Exchange with decade-high cash distributions from assets of £120.4m in its FY23 results (year end 31 December). FY23 also saw FSFL’s divestment programme come to fruition with the sale of a 50% stake in its Spanish Lorca portfolio at a 21% premium to its holding value. The proceeds of this divestment, along with free cash, were used to pay down the fund’s variable rate debt via its revolving credit facility by £40m and to continue to deliver on the share buyback programme, with half of the £40m being deployed in 2023. FSFL released guidance of a 6% y-o-y increase in its dividend (33% dividend growth since IPO) for FY24 at 8p/share (FY23: 7.55p/share) with dividend cover of 1.5x (FY23: 1.6x). There is significant headroom in the dividend cover to operate further out, even in a falling power price environment.