Shares of UK power company Drax hit a 20-year high after beating profit expectations

The British power company Drax surpassed annual profit expectations on Thursday and increased its dividend, thanks to strong pellet production in North America, and record renewable generation. Shares of the company rose to near a two-decade high, as a result.

In recent years, Drax has enjoyed a rise in wholesale power prices. This was especially true after the Russia/Ukraine conflict.

The company forecast core earnings for 2026 in line with market expectations and raised its dividend by 11.5%, to 29 pence a share.

Drax reported core earnings for the twelve months ending December 31st, 2025 of 947 million pounds, a drop of almost 11% compared to a year earlier, but ahead of analysts' average forecast of 914 million pounds, according company-compiled consensus.

The shares reached their highest level since the August 2006 before reversing some of those gains and trading up 3.5% to 913 pence.

TRANSITION STRATEGIQUE

Will Gardiner, CEO of Drax, said he expected core profits between 600-700 millions pounds in 2027. Earnings are expected to increase from there.

The company recorded a 378-million-pound impairment charge in 2025. This was primarily related to its Canadian operations for which it is reviewing "strategic" options.

Drax has already stated that it may cut

More than 350 Roles

. Gardiner announced on Thursday that the 'jobs created by its planned data centre project will be a lot of jobs.

Dependency

The scale of the investment made by both the customer and developer.

Gardiner stated: "As suppliers of 'power,' we have an enormous?opportunity. AI is the power. "The opportunity to provide customers in this space is very exciting." Reporting by Ankita Boora in Bengaluru, Editing by Subhranshu and Louise Heavens

(source: Reuters)