Anglian re-engineers its gearing ratio

摘要

The change to its corporate structure that Anglian Water Group announced at the end of June will give its operating utility business significantly more financial headroom, and enable it to sidestep the new Ofwat regulation that will oblige highly geared companies to share any financing gains with customers. The injection of around £1 billion of fresh equity into Anglian Water Services by two new holding company vehicles, the Aigrette Financing holdco and the Osprey Acquisitions midco, has lowered the operational leverage at AWS below the 70% threshold at which Ofwat's "gearing sharing mechanism" - introduced at the start of the AMP7 period last year - kicks in.