As an Infratil shareholder (or future shareholder), you'll be interested in what returns you'll get from your shares. 

Learn the answers to some questions investors commonly ask.

Investors usually assess companies on their returns. To understand if returns are good and are repeatable you need to understand the risks a company takes to deliver these returns.

We aim to provide regular updates on the progress of our businesses and the risks involved with each of our investments. These are outlined in the For Investors section.

Infratil’s daily share price can also be followed at https://www.nzx.com/instruments/IFT

You can look at past returns and future returns. Past returns show how well we have run our business and how good our management is. But past returns only say what happened in the past — you cannot use them to predict future returns.

The best way to assess if we are doing well is to look at our targets for future returns. Those targets are a benchmark and should also give you an idea of how much risk we are willing to take to deliver these returns.

While we target returns of 11–15% a year after tax, actual returns can vary greatly from year to year. We believe we have delivered our target returns over the long term, although annual returns have only been in that range twice since we listed (2011 and 2018).

The components of our target return are constantly changing, including the balance of portfolio assets between core, core-plus and development, while in some years our leverage assumptions or management costs will differ based on changes in our portfolio composition.

The largest influence on our actual returns is how the companies that we invest in perform, which can also be exposed to shorter-term market fluctuations.

This is why we are deliberate in forecasting our returns on a 10-year basis. It also takes into account:

  • We make investments for the long-term, we do not target short-term profits
  • This period should take out the effect of shorter-term market fluctuations
  • It should smooth divergences between the returns on our assets and shares
  • A large percentage of our shareholders hold their shares for the long-term

We aim to deliver long-term shareholder returns of 11–15% per annum after tax, through a mix of share price increase and dividend returns.

Annual return calculations are set out in each annual report. This link is to the relevant section of the last report.

Our goal is to raise dividends sustainably in the long term, although in any one year they will vary based on the financial performance and forecasts of the companies that we invest.

Dividends per share have been increasing in the last decade
Dividend 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023
Cash 10.75 27.5 20.65 15.75 16.75 17.00 17.25 17.75 18.50 19.25
Imputation credits 2.99 10.69 8.03 6.12 6.51 3.50 3.75 5.25 7.20 7.49
Total dividend 13.74 38.19 28.68 21.87 23.26 20.50 21.00 23.00 25.70 26.74

A dividend is the share of earnings that a company pays shareholders. Investors usually refer to dividends in terms of ‘cents per share’ — how much you get for each share.

How often will I get dividends?

We pay dividends twice a year, usually in June and December.

Do dividends affect share price?

Share price can go up or down depending on how much dividend we pay. Often investors will pay more for a share that has a higher dividend.

But investors may accept a lower dividend for the same share price if they are likely to get less money by investing elsewhere. For example, in 2011, we paid an annual dividend of 6.25 cents per share. At that time our share price was $1.91, meaning the investors got 3.3% a year for every dollar they invested.

Fast forward 10 years to 2021. Our dividend was 18.0 cents per share. If investors still wanted 3.3% for their investment, the share price would have been $5.50 — but it was not. The share price was $7.13. Investors were prepared to pay more for the same return.

That’s because what you could get from investing elsewhere had dropped. In 2011 you would get 4% a year for every dollar you invested in a government bond, but in 2021 you only got about 2%.