Spain's Iberdrola says on track to beat core profit target

(Adds detail, EBITDA target, background)

MADRID, Oct 22 (Reuters) - Spanish utility Iberdrola is on track to beat its full-year target for underlying profit, it said on Wednesday, with growth in its traditional gas and electricity business compensating for a regulatory hit on renewables.

The Bilbao-based company, a world leader in renewable energy, said it is set to exceed a 2014 objective for earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) of 6.6 billion euros ($8.4 billion).

It reported EBITDA up 1.4 percent year on year to 5.21 billion euros in the nine months to Sept. 30, slightly beating the consensus forecast of 5.18 billion euros in a Reuters poll of six analysts, despite drought in Brazil and the new Spanish regulations.

Spain's energy reforms, which aim to cut a massive tariff shortfall in the regulated power system, have wiped 1.4 billion euros from Iberdrola's earnings since 2011.

Angry over the painful reforms, Iberdrola Chairman Ignacio Sanchez Galan has vowed to cut domestic investments drastically and boost exposure abroad, especially in the United States and Mexico. The company already owns Scottish Power and U.S. Energy East, bought in 2006 and 2007 respectively, before Spain's financial crisis.

Iberdrola has recently hired JPMorgan to sell some foreign renewables assets, which could raise up to 2 billion euros to help to fund an acquisition in the fast-growing U.S. market.

Net profit was 1.83 billion euros in the period, down 19.5 percent from the first nine months of 2013 and just below a forecast of 1.84 billion euros.

The company has debt of 26 billion euros but said that this would be reduced to 24.7 billion euros by the end of the year, meeting its targets two years ahead of schedule. (1 US dollar = 0.7857 euro) (Reporting by Julien Toyer and Jose Elias Rodriguez; Editing by David Goodman)