National Grid posts full-year profit rise
LONDON, May 21 (Reuters) - Britain's gas and electricity network operator National Grid (LSE: NG.L - news) reported an 11 percent rise in annual pretax profit, allowing the company to pay shareholders a full-year dividend of 42.87 pence, up 2 percent year on year.
The utility, one of Britain's top 20 companies by market capitalisation, made 2.9 billion pounds ($4.5 billion) in pretax profit, ahead of a company-provided consensus forecast, and saw earnings per share rise 9 percent to 58.1 pence.
The company said it had invested around 3.5 billion pounds in improving its infrastructure in the financial year ending March 31 that would help reduce transmission costs and ultimately household energy bills.
($1 = 0.6437 pounds) (Reporting by Karolin Schaps; Editing by Mark Potter)