UU confident of good performance
WATER company United Utilities said it had continued to make progress over the last three months in its quest to provide better customer service and deliver on its regional investment programme.
The Warrington company is confident of producing a “good underlyig financial performance” in the current financial year, and is continuing to consult with regulator Ofwat to finalise its targets and pricing levels for the 2015-20 period.
A spokeswoman said there are “no issues” with reservoir water levels, despite the recent warm weather.
UU, one of the region’s biggest listed businesses said trading between April 1 and July 24 was “in line with the group’s expectations”. Revenue has increased, reflecting the regulated price rise for 2014/15, partly offset by a special customer discount of around £20m.
It added: “This increase in revenue is largely offset by higher depreciation and other operating costs, as expected.”
Having been one of the country’s worst-performing water companies in terms of leakage and customer service four years ago, current chief executive Steve Mogford has overseen a drive to address these failings.
The company said: “We continue to deliver improvements in customer service, underpinned by good operational performance. The water and sewerage companies have now published
their 2013/14 Ofwat key performance indicator reports and we are pleased to report a top quartile performance across this range of operational metrics. In addition, companies have recently published their overall service incentive mechanism (SIM) scores for 2013/14 and we have achieved an above average score across the industry on this measure, representing continued year-on-year improvement.”
UU described its financial position as “robust” and added: “The group expects to deliver a good underlying financial performance for 2014/15. Our improved operational and capital delivery performance will provide further customer and environmental benefits.
“We intend to continue with our dividend policy of targeting 2% per annum growth above the rate of RPI inflation through to at least 2015, underpinned by a robust capital structure. We will continue to engage closely with our regulators, before the draft and final determinations from Ofwat later this year.”
