Yorkshire issue to raise 60m pounds for acquisitions
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Your support makes all the difference.YORKSHIRE Water is raising pounds 60m in a convertible bond issue to fund acquisitions and capital spending, writes Neil Thapar.
The move accompanied a 12 per cent jump in taxable profits to pounds 139m for the year to 31 March, on sales up 9 per cent to pounds 482m. Earnings per share improved by 13 per cent to 65p. The total dividend has been lifted by 9 per cent to 21.25p.
The company said it was taking advantage of low interest rates to raise new funds with the bond issue. It had planned to raise pounds 55m, but demand for the bonds was so great that it decided to raise another pounds 5m. The paper will attract a coupon of about 6.75 per cent, to be paid twice a year.
The results reflected a 7.1 per cent increase in water charges. Group operating costs rose 5.2 per cent to pounds 332.8m after including the pounds 6.5m cost of cutting staff by 300 to 3,700.
Interest charges soared from pounds 1.1m to pounds 13.6m thanks to a jump in net borrowings from pounds 140m to pounds 216m, equivalent to more than 18 per cent of shareholders' funds. The company invested about pounds 303m in improvements to water services during the year.
The company's non-regulated business, which covers liquid and clinical waste treatment, contributed operating profits of pounds 2.6m compared with pounds 1.7m. Yorkshire has spent about pounds 44m on expanding its non-regulated businesses since privatisation, of which pounds 14m went on the purchase of Alcontrol, a Dutch company, last January.
However, the diversification has not yet produced a commercial return. Yorkshire said that after taking carrying costs of its investments into account, it broke even last year. But the move had enabled it to set up a firm base from which its performance would improve over the next few years.
The company warned that continued tightening of environmental legislation would push up water prices for the rest of the decade. At the time of privatisation it envisaged spending pounds 1.2bn on meeting EC standards, but new laws have added another pounds 1bn to the bill.
As a result, the company is calling for further EC legislation to be delayed or abandoned. It estimated that to fulfil the new demands water prices would need to rise by about 6.5 per cent over inflation each year from 1995.
'We would like to see price rises at a lower rate. There is a genuine question whether our customers can afford to pay the expected increases. We will continue to borrow more but this cannot go on for ever,' the company said.
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