28th Jul 2006 07:00
UNITED UTILITIES PLC 2006 AGM STATEMENT United Utilities will hold its Annual General Meeting today at the BridgewaterHall, Manchester. Commenting on the group's performance for the year ended 31March 2006, Chairman, Sir Richard Evans will say:"I'm pleased to report another year of solid progress for the group. We haveagain delivered good profit growth, with a strong performance in our regulatedbusinesses. This has been supported by the benefits of leveraging our coreutility skills in growth markets."Consistent with our target of growing dividends in line with inflation, duringthis regulatory price control period, the Board is proposing to increase thefinal dividend by 3.4 per cent."The Chairman will introduce Tim Weller to the meeting who joined the company on1 July 2006 from RWE Thames Water. He will confirm that Mr Weller is due to beappointed to the Board as Chief Financial Officer with effect from 1 August2006, replacing Simon Batey. He will add that Jane Newell steps down as anon-executive director at the conclusion of the meeting after nearly ten yearsservice.Discussing current trading and progress of the group, Philip Green, ChiefExecutive Officer, will say:"Current trading is in line with the group's expectations. The regulatedbusinesses will benefit this year from allowed price increases, includinginflation, of 8.8 per cent in the water business and 2.6 per cent in theelectricity business."Since September 2005, the group has raised over ‚£1 billion of long-term,index-linked debt funding, at favourable interest rates, averaging around 1.8per cent real, securing substantial additional value for our shareholders.Recent agreed issues mean that we now have around ‚£300 million of index-linkeddebt funding with 50 year maturities."In our regulated businesses, delivery of the efficiency initiatives isprogressing well. Operational performance has been good and United UtilitiesWater met its year-end economic level of leakage spot target. This places thebusiness in a strong position to meet its 2006/07 rolling leakage target. We doneed to improve further still and are in the process of developing a range ofkey operational and service measurements to help us do that."United Utilities Contract Solutions represents a direct application of ourcore utility skills. The business has a number of significant contracts inplace as well as a strong order book, which was further enhanced by lastmonth's successful renewal of our contract with Scottish Water, throughScottish Water Solutions. Performance across the contract portfolio has beenexcellent."Vertex has made significant progress in developing its financial servicesoutsourcing business and since the end of the year Vertex Financial Serviceshas secured new contracts with a total value of more than ‚£40 million. In thepublic sector, Vertex has agreed a further contract with the Department forWork and Pensions which follows the successful payments modernisation contractthat came to a natural close last year. This new contract is for the provisionof a clerical cases management service on behalf of the Child Support Agencyand is worth around ‚£23 million over a 21 month period."The regulated businesses will continue to benefit from predictableindex-linked income streams. Based on the Board's confidence in the group'sstrategy, the dividend policy remains unchanged. This policy depends on thegroup meeting its regulated cost savings targets and the support servicesbusinesses continuing to perform at least in line with their levels at thestart of this five-year period. The Board is confident that both these targetswill be met."Overall, the group has made good progress and we are on track to deliver animproved performance this year." -o0o- For further information, contact:Philip Green, Chief Executive Officer +44 (0)1925 237000Tim Weller, Chief Financial Officer designate +44 (0)1925 237000Gaynor Kenyon, Group Communications Director +44 (0)7753 622282Darren Jameson, Investor Relations Manager +44 (0)7733 127707ENDUNITED UTILITIES PLCRelated Shares:
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