Holland’s second biggest energy concern, Nuon, announced on Monday that net profit rose 15% to €875m in 2007.

The increase was ‘strongly influenced’ by incidental items, the company said. Turnover was up 1% at €5.6bn, said Nuon.
‘The strong performance of production and trading activities in 2007 was the most important cause of this significant increase. The results from trading activities are strongly influenced by price fluctuations in the markets for raw materials and electricity,’ the company said in a statement.
Nuon proposes paying shareholders (local and provincial governments) a dividend of €413m or 45% of net profit (excluding one-off items) over 2007.
In terms of customer numbers, Nuon said there was a fall of less than 1% in 2007 but that the position improved in the last two quarters of the year. The volume of gas supplied by Nuon fell 11% last year due to warm weather.
Nuon also announced the launch of an investment fund for energy-related technologies with a start-up capital of €40m.