Huaneng Power International Shares Rise After Quarterly Profit Doubles

By Amanda Lee

Huaneng Power International shares rose after the Chinese electricity producer said quarterly profit more than doubled, helped by lower fuel costs and increasing electricity demand in the world's second-largest economy.

Shares were up 5.05% in Shanghai and 2.4% in Hong Kong midday Wednesday, outpacing gains in the benchmark indexes of both exchanges.

Huaneng's first-quarter profit more than doubled from a year earlier to 4.60 billion yuan ($634.9 million) on revenue that edged higher to CNY65.37 billion, the company said late Tuesday.

A nearly 13% decline in unit fuel cost and a 5.6% rise in China's electricity consumption were "more than enough" to offset lower average electricity prices, Citi Research analysts Pierre Lau and Bella Tian wrote in a note.

Still, they kept a sell rating, saying a 44% share-price rally over the past six months "has probably reflected much of its earnings improvement from unit fuel cost cut." They kept a target price of HK$3.80 on the company's H shares, which last traded at HK$5.06.

Write to Amanda Lee at amanda.lee@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 24, 2024 00:22 ET (04:22 GMT)

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