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International Power, the electricity generator that last year combined with the non-European operations of GDF Suez of France, said it was confident of reporting “further growth” in the coming year, in spite of widespread economic weakness in many developed nations.

The upbeat comments came after International Power said pro-forma earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation for the year to the end of December 2011 showed an 8 per cent rise on 2010, rising to €4.3bn from €4bn. Sales went up 3 per cent, to €16.5bn, from €15.9bn last time.

The pro-forma results assume that the union of the non-European assets GDF Suez – a big French utility – and International Power occurred on January 1 2010. Under the deal, completed a year ago, GDF Suez gained a 70 per cent stake in International Power even though the UK-based company retained its London listing.

International Power said its confidence about 2012 was based partly on expectations of contributions to revenues and profits from new plants that became operational in late 2011.

Another factor was some 2,400MW of net extra generation capacity – after taking into account the closures of outdated power units – that is likely to start up in the next 12 months.

International Power said its construction programme was “progressing well”, with a further 3,500MW of net capacity likely to become operational by 2014.

In a further bullish comment, the company said it saw a “significant” recovery potential in many industrialised countries on the assumption they emerged strongly from a period of low demand caused by the aftermath of the financial traumas of recent years.

But the company sounded a more subdued note in discussing the outlook in Brazil where it has a strong presence in generating electricity using hydro power.

As a result of high investment in this sector in the country, International Power said market prices for power in Brazil had fallen since last year. So it might be “challenging” to hit a €1bn ebitda profit target for new hydro projects in the country that the company had previously set for 2013.

International Power also said pro-forma underlying earnings per share for 2011 were 27.6 cents, up 11 per cent on the 24.9 cents recorded in 2010. The company is paying a full year dividend of 11 cents for the latest 12-month period, compared with 10.9 cents in the previous year.

International Power’s London-listed shares fell 2.8 per cent to 333.1p on Wednesday.

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