Energia Group booked an almost €92 million expense for share options granted to management during its latest financial year, a period in which an agreement was reached for the sale of the all-Ireland power company for an enterprise value of about €2.5 billion.

The previously-unreported charge taken for the conditional options was contained in the company’s annual report from the year to March.

Energia has since published its financial first-quarter results in recent days on its website, which shows that earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (Ebitda) jumped 25 per cent as a spike in wholesale electricity prices in the wake of the Middle East crisis boosted its power generation businesses. However, margins in its customer supply division, which serves almost 900,000 homes and businesses, were squeezed.

French investment firm Ardian completed its acquisition of Energia Group from US-based I Squared Capital on June 18th, eight months after the deal was agreed.

I Squared acquired Energia – then known as Viridian – in 2016 from Bahrain’s Arcapita Bank for €1 billion. Arcapita had owned the business for almost a decade.

Energia had previously only taken a total of €900,000 of management share option charges under the ownership of I Squared Capital from early 2016. They were spread out between 2019 and 2022.

Energia’s chief executive Ian Thom is part of a 10-member management team. It also includes chief financial officer Louise Patterson, chief operating officer Tom Gillen and chief development officer Garrett Donnellan. The report did not give details of the individual beneficiaries of the incentive programme.

“Energia Group does not comment on the contractual arrangements of key management personnel,” a spokesman said in a statement. He added that the calculated value of the conditional share options “does not necessarily reflect the value that may ultimately be realised under those arrangements”.

Earnings across the group’s three business arms – a renewable energy generation business, a flexible generation unit that can be called upon to provide additional supply to the national grid, and a customer supply division – have each been affected by different dynamics in the energy market in recent years. However, they have proven to be complementary as a whole, leading to less volatility at group level.

The renewables unit, which owns 392 megawatts (MW) of wind assets and purchases electricity from 1.11 gigawatts (GW) of third-party green energy producers, delivered a 79 per cent annual jump in Ebitda for the three months to June, to €32.4 million. It benefited from a surge in wholesale electricity prices and increased wind capacity.

Ebitda in the flexible generation division, mainly made up of two combined cycle gas turbine plants in Huntstown in north Co Dublin with a total capacity of 747MW, soared 151 per cent to €19.6 million amid higher power prices and higher availability of plants to respond to demand and national grid requirements.

However, Ebitda in the group’s electricity and gas supply business, which has about 898,900 household and business customers, plunged 40 per cent to €18 million as the jump in wholesale prices hit its earnings margins. This part of the business suffered large losses following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as its margins were squeezed by heightened wholesale prices.

Meanwhile, Fitch, one of the world’s leading credit ratings agencies, last week upgraded its view of Energia’s creditworthiness by one level to BB+, just one rung below what is considered investment grade.

The upgrade was partly down expected earnings growth over the coming years as Energia grows its renewable energy portfolio and builds a data centre in Huntstown in partnership with Microsoft. The data centre received planning approval last year and is currently in its construction phase.