Financial position
Capital structure
Various instruments are used to finance the maintenance and expansion of the energy networks and other activities. For this finance, Alliander is dependent on its shareholders, institutional investors and banks. Alliander's creditworthiness is rated by rating agencies that publish their findings. The capitalisation of Alliander as at year-end 2015 was made up as follows:
As the capital structure reveals, Alliander is 59% equity-financed. Shareholders' equity is provided by the shareholders and is increased by the partial retention of the net profit each year. The shareholders receive a percentage of the net profit as dividend each year. Holders of the subordinated perpetual bond loan receive a fixed return on their investment out of the reported profit provided a dividend is declared. Alliander does not have access to finance by issuing new shares to private investors because private shareholdings in Dutch regional network companies are prohibited by law. To raise external finance, Alliander needs to turn to providers of borrowed capital. These are mainly institutional investors that buy debt instruments issued by Alliander. To meet its long-term finance requirements, Alliander has issued five bond loans that are quoted on the stock exchange, including a subordinated perpetual bond loan. The loans are listed on the Luxembourg Stock Exchange and NYSE Euronext Amsterdam. To meet its variable finance needs in the short term, Alliander regularly issues short term commercial paper. Additionally, Alliander has a contracted committed credit facility with a number of banks to provide a backup source of finance, should it not be possible to raise the necessary funds on the capital market or the money market.
The development in the net debt position as at 31 December 2015 is shown below: