National Grid (LSE:NG.), in a pre-close trading update, ahead of its half-year results in November, told investors it expects to report improved earnings growth.
The electricity and gas transmission and distribution group said its regulated businesses are performing in line with expectations, but stronger-than-planned performance in its National Grid Ventures & Other division means underlying earnings per share growth should come in slightly above its guidance range of 13-15% for the 2026/27 financial year.
National Grid Ventures houses the group's unregulated activities, including interconnectors and the National Grid Partners investment portfolio. The division is set to deliver around £130m of additional performance in the first half relative to expectations, driven by one-off fair value gains from two capital market transactions within the NG Partners portfolio and firmer results from the interconnectors business.
Underlying earnings per share is still expected to be weighted to the second half, the company said, consistent with its usual pattern.
Group operating profit should also track a similar profile to last year, with UK Electricity Transmission and UK Electricity Distribution split broadly evenly across the full year, matching the 2025/26 pattern.
In the US regulated businesses, operating profit is expected to skew toward the second half in line with normal seasonality, and New England should return to a more typical seasonal profile after last year's one-off hit from the FERC return-on-equity judgement weighed on the second half of 2025/26.
Closing half-year net debt is expected to be broadly in line with full-year guidance once adjusted for the Joulent investment and the usual second-half weighting of operating cash flows.
The 13-15% underlying EPS growth guidance for 2026/27 was set out alongside National Grid's full-year results in May, when it reported underlying EPS of 78.0p for the year to 31 March and committed at least £70bn of capital investment through to 2030/31.
National Grid will report half-year results on 5 November.