HONG KONG (AFX) - Cheung Kong Infrastructure Holdings Ltd said its net profit for 2005 rose 70 pct to 6.00 bln hkd, from 3.52 bln a year earlier, on the back of exceptional gains from the sale of power assets in Australia.

Excluding the exceptional and one-off gains, the company's underlying net profit rose 12 pct to 4 bln hkd from a year earlier, managing director Kam Hing Lam told a media briefing.

The company, a unit of Cheung Kong Holdings, said it made an aggregate 3.76 bln hkd gain from the sale of 49 pct stakes it held in three power companies in Australia, namely ETSA Utilities, Powercor and CitiPower.

Kam said the sale of its electricity assets in Australia will not affect its long-term earnings, as the company is looking into other future investments and expects good returns.

It said its earnings were also boosted by a 3.18 bln hkd share of profits from associates and a 311 mln hkd share of profits from jointly-controlled entities.

The earnings boost from asset sales and share of profits from associates and jointly-controlled entities helped offset finance costs of 732 mln hkd and impairment losses of 1.73 bln hkd, it said.

Profit contribution from the company's core infrastructure investments rose sharply 140 pct to 4.90 bln hkd, of which 2.50 bln came from Hongkong Electric, he added.

The company declared a final dividend of 0.708 hkd. Together with the interim dividend of 0.24 hkd, this will bring the total dividend to 0.948 hkd, up 20 pct from a year earlier.

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