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United Utilities Group PLC on Thursday said its annual profit and revenue dropped amid a ‘challenging year of cost pressures.’
The Warrington, England-based water works company said pretax profit for the year ended March 31 fell by 42% to £256.3 million from £439.9 million a year prior.
United Utilities also swung to an underlying pretax loss of £34.3 million from a £301.9 million profit.
This decline in profit was attributed to increased total operating expenses of £1.38 billion, 10% higher than £1.25 billion in financial 2022. Investment income and finance expenses were 28% higher at £215.7 million from £168.3 million the year before.
Revenue was down 2.2% to £1.82 billion from £1.86 billion a year prior.
Back in March, United Utilities lowered its expected revenue for financial 2023 as it expected underlying finance expenses to widen.
United Utilities proposed a final dividend of 30.34 pence per share, up 4.6% from 29.0p per share the year before, raising its total dividend for the period to 45.51p per share from 43.50p per share.
Looking ahead, United Utilities said it will target dividend growth in line with the UK’s consumer prices index, including owner occupiers’ housing costs inflation through to 2025.
It will also set out a plan for the next regulatory period in October to target a ‘significant improvement’ in storm overflow performance, and will include its ‘biggest environmental programme yet.’
Chief Executive Officer Louise Beardmore said: ‘It is clear that we need to invest in infrastructure, assets and our people to meet new environmental targets and deliver the further performance improvements customers and communities want to see. Along with all my colleagues, we are committed to delivering even better performance and we are looking forward to the opportunity to do so.’
Shares in United Utilities were trading marginally higher at 1,015.50 pence each in London on Thursday morning.
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