National Grid raises underlying EPS guidance on accounting change

National Grid has lifted its profit guidance for the year to 31 March after an accounting change due to a tax relief change announced by the government.

The multinational electricity and gas utility group said underlying earnings per share are now expected to be "in line" with the period year at actual exchange rates.

At the half-year results in November, the company guided to underlying EPS being "modesty below" the previous year.

The UK government introduced 'full expensing' tax relief in the 2023 Spring Budget for qualifying capital expenditure to encourage greater levels of investment from businesses. However, this change became permanent in November 2023.

"To represent underlying profitability more accurately, and to align with UK peers, we will now report underlying earnings and underlying EPS excluding the impact of deferred tax in our UK Electricity Transmission and Distribution businesses," National Grid said.

The impact will be an 8p increase in underlying EPS for the 2023/24 financial year, which will put it in line with the year ended March 2023.