Australia | 1:07 PM
Fresh insight into CDC’s accelerating growth, renewable-energy opportunities and the portfolio’s evolving strategic direction are expected at Infratil’s investor day.
- Infratil’s strategy in focus at this Wednesday’s investor day
- Citi anticipates a positive share price catalyst from the event
- CDC remains the growth engine, with Longroad’s contribution rising
- FY27 to see more asset recycling and accelerated investment across the portfolio
By Mark Woodruff
New Zealand-based, externally managed infrastructure investment company Infratil ((IFT)) last reported in May, reflecting its March year-end, making the company’s investor day in Sydney on Wednesday a potentially important source of updates on performance and strategy.
Citi believes this week's event could provide a positive catalyst for Infratil shares, with attention focused on CDC’s (data centres) contracting position, revenue timing and development pipeline; progress on Longroad Energy’s proposed data-centre projects; and updates on asset sales and funding.
Jarden also anticipates more information around further asset sales, the strategic direction of One New Zealand, reasons for Longroad’s stagnant independent valuation, and CDC’s contracting and capacity-delivery outlook.
Commentary on a potential change in CDC’s strategy involving development of a data centre through a joint venture in New Zealand is also expected.
At Infratil’s AGM in August, management noted that despite constraints for the New Zealand businesses due to a soft economy, CDC and Longroad Energy are experiencing “exceptional demand”.
The company expects CDC’s EBITDA (after changes in the fair value of financial instruments)/EBITDAF for the current financial year to be between $680m-$720m and more than $1bn in the following year.
At 30 June 2026, Infratil’s CDC stake was valued at $9.21bn, equivalent to roughly NZ$10.1bn, following a 23.6% quarterly valuation increase.
In early 2025, Infratil and its partner, Australia’s Future Fund, jointly acquired an additional 12.04% stake in CDC from the Commonwealth Superannuation Corporation, bringing their respective stakes to 49.75% and 34.55%.
Not reflected in the company’s FY26 numbers, Australasia’s largest ever data centre contract was secured by CDC in early May. The 30-year agreement with an investment-grade US customer pushed CDC's total contracted capacity beyond 1GW.
Renewables/Longroad Energy
Following FY26 results, Macquarie noted data centres are now the main earnings driver but renewables are expected to become a major contributor going forward.
Infratil has stakes in four global renewable-energy platforms: Longroad Energy in the US, Singapore-based Gurin Energy, pan-European developer Galileo and Australian wind, solar and storage developer Mint Renewables.
Longroad is also experiencing positive impacts from data centre demand with management noting near completion of a 100MW project to supply a Meta data centre.
At FY26 results, management noted Longroad was considering expanding into onsite data centres, effectively bringing computing chips to the source of power, explained Morgans.
Later at the AGM, management stated it was seeking greater collaboration between portfolio companies, citing CDC and 9.08%-owned Contact Energy ((CEN)) exploring a 250MW data centre opportunity at Stratford in New Zealand.
Longroad was valued at NZ$2.48bn, up from NZ$2.39bn at 31 March.
The Infratil business and management’s strategy
Infratil’s primary listing is on the New Zealand Exchange, with its shares also trading on the ASX.
External manager Morrison & Co oversees the portfolio’s day-to-day management across four core infrastructure sectors: digital, renewable energy, healthcare and airports.
One New Zealand (99.9%-owned) and Wellington Airport are seen as cash flow generators, helping drive ongoing distributions.
One New Zealand is one of New Zealand’s largest telecommunications companies and was formerly known as Vodafone New Zealand.
Healthcare exposure largely comprises a 56.2% interest in Qscan Group, an Australian diagnostic-imaging provider offering MRI, CT, ultrasound and X-ray services, for which a sale process is underway.
While investments are generally made with a long-term ownership horizon, rapid growth elsewhere in the portfolio has prompted further refinement.
Assets lacking sufficient scope to scale may be divested, with around NZ$600m of Infratil’s targeted NZ$1bn disposal program already completed.
Overall, Infratil’s largest business exposure is CDC, followed by New Zealand telecommunications provider One New Zealand at around NZ$3.7bn, Longroad Energy and then Wellington Airport at around NZ$0.9bn.
On July 6, an updated independent valuation of the CDC business was released to the ASX showing a 23.6% increase during the quarter to $18.5bn.
This uplift was driven by a strong increase in contracted capacity to more than 1GW, the acceleration of CDC’s build program to support this demand and expansion in total pipeline out to FY40 to 3.9GW of leasable capacity from 2.6GW to support future growth.
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