Citibank published a research report indicating that CLP Holdings will benefit from potential US interest rate cuts, considering that its stock price is highly correlated with US Treasury yield, upgraded its investment rating from “neutral” to “buy”, and raised net profit forecasts for this year and next two years by 6.5% and 6.6%, respectively, to 12.739 billion and HK$13.066 billion, respectively, to reflect the expansion of Australian business contributions; based on the cash flow discount rate, the target price increased by 16% to HK$72. According to the report, CLP's profit recovered last year. Even though CLP recorded impairment expenses of 5.9 billion yuan during the period, net profit still rose 6.2 times to HK$6.655 billion, and operating profit (excluding changes in fair value) rose 33.2% year-on-year to HK$10.1 billion, mainly driven by EnergyAustralia. The total annual dividend of HK$3.1 per share remained flat year-on-year, which meant that the dividend rate reached 4.9%. The Group is guiding stable dividends in the future.

According to Citi, the Hong Kong business contributed more than 70% of CLP's regular profit. The uncertainty was removed with the renewal of the control plan agreement with the government last year, and a capital expenditure plan for 2024 to 2028 was determined, which is equivalent to HK$10.58 billion per year. The compound annual growth of the asset base under the control plan for the next five years is estimated to reach 2.9%. Furthermore, the Australian business is expected to continue to improve this year as most of the low price electricity sales contracts expired last year.