Infratil tips further dividend hikes

Businessman and philanthropist Lloyd Morrison. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Infratil is signalling further rises in dividends in an annual report that also has a final message from founder Lloyd Morrison who died in February this year.

The infrastructure investor said positive earnings momentum and a solid capital position have allowed for an increase in the dividend, and "this is expected to continue in the near future".

The company paid dividends of eight cents a share in 2012, up from 6.75 cents the previous year as operating profits and cash flow improved.

"While Infratil's primary target is capital appreciation over the long-term, we expect to see dividends rise given current priorities and earnings projections," chairman David Newman and chief executive Marko Bogoievski said in the annual report.

Shares of Infratil closed yesterday at $2.015 and have climbed 6.4 per cent this year.

The report also praises the mixed ownership model for businesses, noting how it has worked in businesses Infratil has invested in.

The Government is opting to use the model by partially privatising state-owned energy companies.

In a message to shareholders in the annual report, Morrison asks his colleagues to push themselves going forward.

"My work life has been always set up to do something sustainable and extraordinary for everybody involved and that is what I ask of all of you going forward that you push yourselves, that you focus on getting the most out of your lives by giving to other people, that you are intolerant of doing things half baked, you are intolerant of inefficiency and laziness and self-congratulations and complacency as that is unfair on other people, to waste in that way," Morrison says.