Welcome to Magnora's Q1 presentation 2023. Good morning to everyone. Q1 2023 status and highlights. On May 12th last week, we sold all our shareholdings in Evolar AB for NOK 29 million. We exchanged the currency at close on Friday and received NOK 310 million for all our shares in the company. We still expect milestones of $24 million and at the current exchange rates, the total realization would then be NOK 565 million. Our invested capital in the company is SEK 55 million, we've lent the company SEK 35 million, and all loans are made up at transaction date. Magnora is now a streamlined project developer after the sale of our non-core technology company, Evolar AB to First Solar. The sale also removes Magnora monthly cash injection to Evolar, which has been currently running at NOK 5 million per month.
We're very pleased with this transaction. It marks the largest transaction we've done so far after the new strategy. We've had another rapid quarter of capacity growth. Our net development portfolio grew to above 5,000 MW, two years ahead of our previous guiding. New guiding expected to be significantly above 5,000 MW. We are planning to announce that quite soon. Helios expect to deliver solid dividend short term. The current cash holding in Helios is around SEK 145 million as this report is announced. It was the first quarter with solid earnings from our associated companies, the companies we own less than 50% in. The profit was NOK 26.6 million. We also received a significant payment from our legacy design business in Q1 that was revenue recurred recognized in Q4 of $7.5 million.
We expect further payments related to this contract of $4.3 million + $4.3 million, in total $8.6 million by the end of the year, early next year. We have ongoing sales and farm-down processes in multiple companies, basically in most of our companies. Based on the significant cash injection we have on Friday from the sale of Evolar, the board is now currently reviewing our dividend policy share buybacks against our profitable growth opportunities. Current cash holding is above NOK 400 million. We have zero debt. As you know, we're a pure asset-light developer of renewable projects and solar technology business we just exited. We have a highly experienced renewable energy investment and project development team. We've reached our ambition to develop 5,000 MW two years ahead of time.
We've financed this business so far from our legacy business and now also from Evolar and dividend from our portfolio companies. We're listed on the main board of Oslo Stock Exchange with over 8,400 shareholders. We invest in renewable and clean energy built in a sustainable way. That's very important for us. We started in 2018 with NOK 100 million in cash, and we repaid dividend. At the start of 2020, we had NOK 50 million in starting capital for renewable business. We've returned NOK 517 million to shareholders in dividend in 2018, 2019 combined. We're now in the process of reviewing our dividend policy again after the sale of and delivery of 126 MW in Q1 net.
Also our exit from Evolar, and we're accelerating our growth in our development pipeline. Our largest shareholders are among others Hafslund, who came into the company in Q3 last year. We've had very good support from some of our largest names around our renewable strategy, and we're very thankful for the support we've had over the last few years, and without them, it wouldn't be possible to do what we're doing today. In 2020, when we initiated our strategy, we said that we will have 30-50 projects in our document called The Future is Electric, which is available at NewsWeb. Today, we have 139 projects, and that gives us a very good diversification across technologies and across countries. This is much higher than we previously anticipated, and we're very happy for that.
We'll continue to develop our project pipeline. As you see from last year, we've have a much larger portfolio in the Nordics area with Helios as the prime driver close to 2,000 MW of solar. We also have a very interesting fast-growing portfolio of storage technology as well as our offshore wind project in Sweden. In Scotland, we have 400 MW net in the ScotWind license round. We've seen quite a few transaction in that license round in the secondary market as we speak. We also entered in Norway together with Hafslund in a JV. South Africa is about to grow further. We're also working on a business plan for U.K., England, on solar PV and battery storage. We have three projects as we speak.
It'll be a very exciting year for the English portfolio and also projects potentially be selling in England and South Africa. We're working in South Africa as we speak. Regarding our strategy, we are a asset-light developer of renewable projects. We take the projects to the ready-to-build phase, where we hand them over to industrial investors like Hafslund or Commerz Real, OX2, or Solgrid, and many other names. Typically, we go in in a early phase with our very competent team, and we have a strategy that we allocate around SEK 2 million-SEK 20 million per company and project. Like, the first investment in Evolar was SEK 2.5 million when we bought that company from the Stockholm District Court R&D center in Uppsala.
When we de-risk, we put in more money, and we have a good veto catalog and control of the companies we go into. Typically, we have the chairman role, and in Evolar, we were also the chairman. Our return goal is to have minimum 5 x return, and we think we achieved this and well above with the Evolar deal. For our project development portfolio, we have much higher expectations regarding return because of the relatively lower DevEx expenses. In Helios, we've invested around NOK 22 million to date. The sale from Helios is way above our invested capital and the profits already. Regarding the role we play in the market, we have higher risk, of course, than a project that have all the concessions and permits in place.
The absolute money we put on risk, at risk is quite low. Typically NOK 2-20 million. In Evolar, we had NOK 50 million , and that's a very low number compared with what you put at risk in a wind park or a solar park. A 5 MW wind turbine costs more than NOK 50 million alone. There you have much more money at risk. What we do, you see left corner below here, that we do the landowner agreement, the grid connection, the environmental assessment concession, technical management, and project management. Those are services we deliver also after the customer have acquired a project. Quite a complex group of deliverables we need to have in place, and we need a competent team to do that.
We get into the team a little further out in the presentation. We also have three important partnerships. First of all, it's with our portfolio companies, but we have a JV with Hafslund, and we cooperate and try to find new areas with them as we speak. We have a JV with Technip FMC in the ScotWind license, Magnora Offshore Wind. DNV is also a partner in ScotWind, not on the equity side, but as a deliverable partner. We work with DNV in several other areas. This gives us huge operating leverage with very competent people. We're a little different from our competitors, if you see on the right side on the bottom. We take the project cost CapEx risk. We have a handpicked team executing on large renewable opportunities with a strong entrepreneurial background.
Like Peter started the RISE Wind Power. Haakon was the first head of onshore and offshore wind in Statkraft for a couple of decades. Bjørn Drangsholt was the country manager in Statkraft UK. He's leading our Norwegian PV venture with Hafslund. Torstein, who's our Executive Chairman, he started the Lundin Petroleum Norway, which was sold last year for a astronomical amount to Aker BP. I myself have worked with Hafslund, Statkraft before, as well as DNV, EY, and I was also the chairman in Evolar and led that company from start to the finish line. Here you see some tombstones for the projects, Helios. Just giving you an example of our blue-chip customers. Commerz Real, a subsidiary of Commerzbank.
Solgrid is a company owned by Østfold Energi and Akershus Energi, two of the largest regional utilities in Norway. Nordic Solar is a Danish, very successful IPP focusing purely on solar in many countries across Europe. Helios in brief, just to give you an example of what's going on there. 118 ongoing projects. They've sold above 600 MW of capacity. They have 900 MW in sales process as we speak. This looks to be another very fruitful year for Helios. They have around 25 employees, and they've sold almost 20 projects now and have finished its first project in Västerås for Commerz Real 21 MW. Beautiful project just outside Västerås.
In Sweden, the industry trade organization expect the market to be 30,000 MW of solar in Sweden. We currently have around 5,000 MW of solar. Of that, we have approximately 15%, 16% market share potentially of that full market. We think we can grow over the next few years and hope to take a very large portion of that 30,000 MW. It's a huge opportunity as onshore wind has stalled completely in Sweden, as in many other countries. We're combining that with batteries, so it should be a very good source of clean, renewable energy for Swedes in the years to come. Little bit more about the Evolar story. We invested in Evolar in 2020.
The team came to us in June and asked us if we knew about investors for Evolar. I was part of Evolar and its predecessor in 2003 to 2007, Solibro. During the summer of 2020, there were very few people interested in venture capital within the solar space. We had a discussion with our biggest shareholders and our board. We were willing to take this risk as we know the technology business within the solar space from our previous experiences. We did a management buyout of this insolvent research facility in the Stockholm District Court. We provided it with venture funding and led the development together with the founders. They have multiple world records within the thin-film space. That was a no-brainer for us.
We have been working a few years with a couple of joint development agreements, we had First Solar showing interest just before Christmas and been working on this deal for over the last few months, last five months actually. We ended up with a transaction value of up to $80 million, NOK 838 million . We own about 2/3 of the company, potentially we can receive NOK 565 million in payments at the current exchange rate if all milestones are met. Magnora will no longer be required to fund the OpEx of Evolar, which is currently running after staff increases late last year of SEK 5 million per month. This has another very positive impact on Magnora and our cash base.
The non-core investments, we have sold 231 MW last year. We guided earlier this year on 200-325 MW of projects to be sold in 2023. We will get back to that number later. We have very good discussions in multiple portfolio companies and think this is a target we can meet. We will also be revising upwards the number of megawatt we will be able to develop over the next few years. The market looks to have a very strong appetite for these type of projects. We feel we're absolutely in the right space. Over to financials. I think the key item on the finance side is that the M&A and development expense will be reduced as a result of Evolar going out of the portfolio.
We have a good operating profit of close to NOK 20 million, and we have a positive profit from our associated companies of NOK 26.6 million. This was in previous quarter as comparison, - NOK 4.5. This is attributable basically to Helios, and you have to take away their costs and also the cost in Kustvind. That's how we end up with this figure. We also have a deferred tax asset of NOK 3.5 million, billion NOK from our legacy business, which is interesting for all shareholders in Magnora. We have paid in capital NOK 8.4 billion, meaning that the return of capital, at least to some type of investors like Norwegian private shareholders, is tax-free. Next slide regarding cash flow.
The key item here was the Penguins cash payment in February. At the exchange rate we used at the time, we received NOK 77 million . The revenue was recognized in Q4. The small loss on the last slide in the profit and loss statement of NOK 7 million relates to currency adjustments from year end 2022 to end of March for the Penguins cash edge. It has no physical effect. We'll receive that money, and then there will be no much more currency risk on that line. The last two payments from Penguins expected short to midterm, so that will be another cash flow event going forward as well as Helios, but that's for the future.
Regarding the outlook, we have a very good development portfolio growth. We have guidance on farm-down of 200 to 325 MW this year. We hope to receive more than NOK 1.5 million per MW in some of our projects going forward. We expect further payment from our legacy contracts and dividend from portfolio companies. We're very proud to have these names on the bottom here, such as Magnora South Africa, Kustvind, Magnora Offshore Wind, strong franchises within their regions. We don't like too much competition. For instance, ScotWind is about to get secured maybe a grid connection from Western Isles to Beauly, close to Inverness in Scotland, second half of this year. These are companies with very good prospects going forward.
On the last item here, it's about share buyback, capital reduction and dividends. We have very profitable growth opportunities before us. We will not change our business model, but stick to the model where we spend NOK 2-NOK 20 million in initial investments, at least in our new projects where we go in. We have too much cash for running that business basically, and we expect to receive a lot of cash going forward. The board has been authorized to initiate share buyback, and this several times, and this was renewed at the annual general meeting on April 25th. For the last couple of years, we've had quarterly dividends, but they were halted after the strategy for The Future is Electric, which we're currently endeavoring.
The board initiated last night a review of share buybacks and return of capital, dividend, against our profitable growth opportunities. We'd be interested in receiving feedback from our shareholders. We've received some from analysts and some of our largest shareholders already, we'll be working first thing in the morning on this going forward and come back and announce this soon as practically possible. We will not have a Q&A session today, we welcome anyone to send us an email. If you're in the Skien area, feel free to invite yourself for a coffee. Maybe we have time. We're always interested in feedback from our shareholders, we just wanna continue growing the number of portfolio companies and projects in this portfolio in the same way to where we got today.
We see very profitable growth opportunities going forward. We're extremely thankful for the support you have on our portfolio companies so far, and we think with the sale of Evolar that we have shown that we can create the returns we've been explaining we could expect over the last few years. We feel very pleased and happy to work on this journey and making the future as electric as possible. With that, we will finish this presentation, and we wish all our investors, analysts and listeners a good day. Hope to hear from you soon. Thank you.