Atlantica Sustainable Infrastructure (AY +0.00%) is a relatively unknown renewable energy producer with a great runway for growth and a current dividend yield of 5.7%. In this episode of "The High Energy Show" on Motley Fool Live, recorded on May 10, Motley Fool contributor Jason Hall discusses why the little-known company is "set to ride all the tailwinds" to success.
Jason Hall: I think this is like the feeder of the future and the most stable part of investing in renewables. This is a yieldco, it's an independent power producer. It's called Atlantica Sustainable Infrastructure.
Travis Hoium: I'm shocked you're going the yieldco route.
Hall: I know, you're stunned here, right? This one was founded by and started up by Abengoa, which is a Spanish company that does a lot of stuff in the energy space. Frankly, it was mismanaged, Abengoa had its own problems. Algonquin Power, which is a Canadian independent power producer and regulated power producer, took over as the sponsor a number of years ago and has a great pipeline of assets. What do these guys do? Produces electricity, 70 percent of it from wind and solar, 15 percent from efficient natural gas, owns a growing collection of transmission lines and a little bit of water desalinization. The things to like about this business. Again, its revenue is either under contracts or sold to a regulated utility. Ninety percent of its cash available from distribution, which is really important metric for cash flows, is either in U.S. dollars or hedged to U..S dollars. It's an international business, so that's really, really important. Again, the vast majority of its cash flows are not dependent on natural resources. There's a lot to like here. Now, I want to talk about what's going on with the business really quickly. Revenue declined in the first quarter largely because of a one-off project last year. You adjust that out and you look at its recurring business, again adjust for foreign exchange impact because it's a lot of those things has contracts that adjust for. Revenue increased about 7 percent. Cash available for distribution on a per-share basis increased about 4 percent. There's growth that's happening. It has a very strong pipeline. Look at its North American revenues up 23 percent in the quarter. Again, the renewables revenue was down because of that one-off project last year. This is a business that is set to ride all of the tailwinds. It has a long history, even with the sell-off we've seen. Has a long history of total return outperformance. It's not quite as fancy as Tyler's 9 percent yield, but 5.7 percent yield and a great history of growing that dividend. Great history of growing that dividend. It sells its power production on 20-year contracts. Has a great sponsor to help feed it opportunities for assets to invest in, to acquire and help finance and participate in those cash flows. I think this is one of the most underappreciated, lesser known of the independent power producers, and I think it's a wonderful buy using that 5.7 percent yield as a proxy for valuation.
