By Jon Robinson
Price increases helped revenue at Anglian Water increase to £1.6bn as it plans to hand shareholders a payday of almost £90m, new figures have revealed.
For the 12 months to March 31, 2024, the supplier saw its revenue rise from £1.4bn to £1.6bn after introducing an average increase of 10.7 per cent in duel-service bills.
Anglian Water, which has over six million customers in the East of England and Hartlepool, is also set to hand its shareholders a dividend totalling £88.6m, up from £79.9m in the prior year.
The company said the move was in line with its dividend policy and consistent with previous years.
The new results also show that Anglian Water’s pre-tax profit was slashed from £358.5m to £133.2m while its EBITDA rose from £802.8m to £819.5m.
The business added that its operations were “significantly impacted” by the prolonged period of wet weather seen at the end of 2023 and the start of 2024 that principally affected outcome delivery incentives (ODIs) such as pollution, which had the biggest contribution to the £37.6m penalty incurred.
Anglian Water said that it had 40 pollutions per 10,000km of sewer network in 2023. The company said it is “disappointed with our performance, but confident that lead measures are showing improvements”.
Anglian Water boss calls pollution spills ‘unacceptable’
Chief executive Peter Simpson said: “During the year we made £963m of capital investment; significantly more than operating profit.
“Our shareholders agreed £350m of additional investment, including £100m to accelerate our work on reducing spills and pollutions. This is over and above the level agreed by Ofwat.”
The CEO also said that the company’s continued focus was apparent through their “improved CMeX”, adding that it outperformed retailer satisfaction scores.
“We also helped 389,371 customers through a £136.9m support package and met our Priority Services Register (PSR) target, with an industry-leading 12.7 per cent (380,853) of customers on our register,” said Simpson.
Speaking on the water supplier’s spills performance, Simpson said that they still “remained industry-leading”, despite experiencing the “wettest six months ever”.
The CEO added: “In the 2023 calendar year, we had 11 category two pollutions, which we know is unacceptable.
“Our turnaround plans have seen an improvement on lead measures, especially on networks, but we know we need to do more, faster, and the additional £100m supported by our shareholders will enable this.”
