Thank you for your patience. We'll begin the Q&A shortly, but first I'll hand it over to Susan Davy, CEO, and Laura Flowerdew, CFO, for a short presentation. Please go ahead.
Great. Thank you very much, Alex, for that, and good morning, everybody, and thank you for joining. So, obviously, joining myself this morning is Laura, and as you will see from the presentation that I hope you've all seen this morning, just before Christmas, we were given the green light from our regulator, Ofwat, for the business plans for Pennon's water businesses, South West Water, and Sutton and East Surrey. So what do we get from that? Well, we've got clarity on the record GBP 3.2 billion capital investment needed across the regions we serve for the five years to 2030. So today we have confirmed acceptance of Ofwat final determinations. We will not be referring to the CMA for those.
And then we have carefully thought about how we fund that investment, and today you will have seen we have launched a fully underwritten rights issue of GBP 490 million as part of a comprehensive financing package. The GBP 490 million rights issue obviously sits alongside the funds we will seek from our best investors as we finance our investment over to 2030. Now, recognizing the need to provide returns to that support, we have considered the dividend policy to 2030, and our policy to 2030, which we are announcing today, will be to maintain the total dividend from 2023-2024, rebased on a dividend-per-share basis as a result of the rights issue and growing thereafter by CPIH inflation.
Our water businesses will maintain the long-held gearing policy of 55%-65%, and we anticipate that gearing levels to be between 60% and 65% over the period to 2030 for those water businesses, consistent with a strong investment-grade credit rating profile, so this keeps us in a strong financially resilient position to deliver for our customers over the period to 2030, and with that, I'll open to questions.
Thank you. As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, please press * followed by 1 on your telephone keypad. Our first question for today comes from Dominic Nash of Barclays. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Good morning, everyone, and thank you for taking my questions, really, if I may. The first one is on the quantum of the GBP 490 million rights issue. Could you give us some sort of color as to the wriggle room that that allows for changes in or estimates going forward in, say, fines coming from the Environment Agency and Ofwat, or potential for new CapEx to be brought through, or changes? How much wriggle room have you sort of baked into this GBP 490 million? Essentially, the question leading to is this enough and unequivocally enough? The second question I have got is that you've got a 7% RORE guidance range, which is close to 200 basis points outperformance. Could you just give a bit of color on where that outperformance is coming from, please? And finally, just a technicality one.
Can you just confirm what the shares trading cum rights today and the record date that I think that you had from last night? What's the meaning of the record date? And if you buy a share today, you're buying it with the dividend and with the rights intact? Can you just confirm that, please? Thank you.
Yes. Morning, Dominic. Thank you very much for those questions. So perhaps if I start first with the GBP 490 million, is that the right number? It is absolutely the right number. We have looked at our forecast having received the final determination for the water business pre-Christmas. As you might imagine, we have worked through numerous scenarios, looked at what we will have to deliver, and let's be clear, we pretty much got what we asked for in the original business plan. So our plans, which we have been developing and indeed starting to deliver on, are very clear for us out to 2030. So we've been able to look through, see what we need in terms of our financing and also scenario plans around various aspects of performance.
We think this is absolutely the right number to be going out with, and we think the quantum of the rights issue combined with the dividend policy that we're presenting is a good comprehensive financing package. That's the first question. Second question around return on regulated equity and what we are targeting. Yes, we are targeting to perform. We think that is the right thing to do. It absolutely gives us headroom going forward through this regulatory period. We have a 5.1% return on equity as the base allowance. Yes, there are extra basis points available for South West Water. That was extra 30 basis points as we achieve certain metrics and deliverables over the K8 period and five basis points for Sutton and East Surrey.
So taking that into account, taking into account where we can outperform, whether it's on driving our cost-based efficiency, which we can come on to and talk about in a minute, or whether it's driving efficiency on our financing, or whether it's targeting in terms of our ODIs. We've looked at it in the round, and we are comfortable with the target that we set ourselves for that period out to 2030. Then in terms of the last question, Laura, do you want to take that in terms of the sensitivities and the dividend piece?
Yes, so yes, the ex-dividend date will be the 30th of January, which is tomorrow, and we will go ex-rights on the 3rd of February from a timing perspective, so that process will happen over the next few days, and the process will then complete over the following weeks with the finalization of that timetable, so yes, as of today, we will be trading with dividend and with rights, but that flows through over the next couple of days.
Thank you, Laura.
Thank you. Thank you. Our next question comes from Pavan Mahbubani from JP Morgan. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good morning, team. Thank you for taking my questions. I've got two, please. Firstly, can you walk through what your thinking was in terms of alternatives and whether you considered certain alternative sources of financing? I mean, the two I have in mind are a scrip alternative to the dividend and also whether a stake sale or anything around Pennon Power, really. It would be great to get your thinking around those and why you chose not to go down that avenue today. And my other question is you're targeting 7% RORE. Do you expect most of that to come from financing? Do you have in mind what a potential split would be? Any color around that would be helpful. And on the RORE, do you expect that to be something that we should see from the first year of K8?
Do you think that the outperformance will be more back-end loaded? Anything around the timing of that would be really helpful as well, please. Thank you.
Great. Thanks for those questions, Pavan. Great questions. So in terms of thinking through how we've got to this comprehensive financing package and how we've thought about it, I mean, as you might imagine, we have thought of how to position this. The first thing to say, which I said to Dom as well with the first question, we're very clear that we think we've got the balance right in terms of what we're coming out with today. And coming out with the rights issue at the GBP 490 million level obviously sets us up for success for the whole period. So that's why we've done what we've done. So you mentioned did we think about things like scrip?
We've had historically a scrip dividend for Pennon, but we think the way we have structured this and coming out strongly with them getting ourselves in the position for the whole period with this rights issue is the right way to do it. So that's the first thing to say. A second thing to say in terms of other assets that we have at the group, and you mentioned Pennon Power, where obviously we have assets under construction, under development for the renewable side, where we're investing in solar projects across the country. We absolutely are keeping those assets under review, and we will consider optimizing ownership of those over time, and we will obviously want to maximize shareholder value of what we're doing.
Now, the reasons why we put Pennon Power in place, we used to have Viridor in the group, but obviously threw off a lot of electricity and was a good natural hedge for the energy and electricity consumption that we had from the water businesses. Having sold Viridor, we have now obviously wanted to put a more natural hedge back in the group. And also, those projects are standalone, good returning projects in their own right. We are going through construction with those, and given where we are with the construction, first energization for one of those projects is at the end of this current financial year, and then the others flow from that in successive periods. Given where we are, we think it's best, valued shareholders, to continue with that construction.
Just to be absolutely clear, the funding and the rights issue is wholly to be used for the water businesses. This is not about Pennon Power. And as I said, we will keep the consideration about how to maximize shareholder value for those projects under review as we walk forward. So that was those two aspects. Second one was around this 7% return on regulated equity and what's the split. We purposely haven't given a split because we've run quite a number of scenarios and looked at how we can manage and balance in terms of the portfolio of what we need to deliver. There are three buckets, for want of better term, of where we can drive for headroom and outperformance. One is around our efficiency and our cost base.
You'll have seen previous presentations where we've talked about rightsizing, rightshaping the organization with a GBP 8 6 million pound target that we have been on with and we are delivering against. So you can see initiatives that are obviously helping us drive for an improved efficiency position. The second aspect is around financing, and I'm sure Laura can talk a little bit about our financing performance and outperformance.
Yeah. Obviously, financing is an area where we've had strong outperformance in the current period. That comes off the back of our diversified debt portfolio, which has allowed us to ensure that we are flexible but locking in through our hedge policy outperformance where that is available. We continue to hold that diversified debt portfolio as we go forward and continue to target financing outperformance. We issued a bond in December, GBP 250 million under the EMTN Programme, which came in at a level in real terms that would demonstrate we can continue to issue efficiently compared to Ofwat allowed cost of debt. And so we believe we're in a strong position to continue to deliver some level of financing outperformance as part of that overall target for 7% real RORE as we move forward into the next regulatory cycle.
Great. Thanks, Laura. And then the last area or bucket of potential performance comes from outcomes, ODIs. Now, let's be really clear. If you look at the common ODIs and metrics, which are the ones that have flown through from K7 to K8, it has been challenging for the entire sector. I don't think there's one company that on the common ODIs as a basket of those has made an incentive to the upside on those. And Ofwat has recognized that, and Ofwat has obviously done a lot of work between draft determinations and final determinations to go through that both at a sector level with a mechanism they've put in place for that and at a company level to make sure that we've got stretching, challenging targets, but ones that we can obviously plan to achieve.
Now, obviously, we haven't had a situation in K7 where we've had outperformance for ODIs. We have stretching, challenging targets for K8, and we have our plans in place to deliver against those. But let's be clear, those will be challenging targets, and we have put in place plans to achieve them. So we have looked at outperformance in the round for those three buckets, whether it's cost-based, whether it's financing, whether it's the ODIs, and we're comfortable with our target that we're putting forward for performance that obviously gives us headroom through that five years. I think, Pavan, you asked about profiling and whether it would be any kind of profiling guidance. We haven't given any profiling guidance. I talked about the work that we're doing already on the cost-based and efficiency that we started last year.
We are comfortable with the 7% RORE that we are targeting and driving for the period.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Mark Freshney of UBS. The line's now open. Please go ahead.
Hey, thanks for taking my question. Question for Laura, just on the bonus element. What's your interpretation of the accounting rules, and when would you set the bonus element for accounting purposes? Secondly, Susan, just on operational performance, I mean, I think it's clear when we look at the stats, whether it's ODIs or environmental performance, it's spills that are the massive issue. And there's a lot you have to do, but in a way, there's not a lot you have to do to get that down to an acceptable level. So can you talk about performance on that in the last couple of months and your targets of getting to an EPA assessment of four stars, subject to how they calculate it next year in relation to this year?
If I could ask finally, just coming to the dividend, I mean, clearly, Ofwat wants management remuneration and dividend linked to operating performance. You clearly tested with the market the GBP 2.4 million fine deducting that from dividends. How will you think about that going forward? Would you deduct that fine from the dividend, or would you do something at the Opco, H oldco level? How would you accommodate those objectives? Thank you.
Okay. Thanks very much, Mark. So I think in terms of the accounting question that you have, I'm sure the team can follow up on that one.
Yeah. Yeah. I guess I would just say, obviously, international accounting standards require adjustment, don't know for the bonus element of the rights issue. That's an estimate until we go through the timetable and the process. So we will finalize that in due course and give further information and follow up on that once we're in a position to do so.
Okay. Thanks, Laura, for that. And then in terms of operating performance and where we need to get to, obviously, there are a whole basket of measures, Mark, that we need to target for K8. And one of the new measures coming in, as you rightly referred to, is around spills and spill numbers. And let's be really clear. We've got a 15-year investment program that we will be deploying starting with this first five-year regulatory period to get us to where we need to be in terms of the use of storm overflows in the system that we have. So we have significant investment going in over this five-year period, very much targeted on storm overflows, and it is over GBP 800 million worth of investment that we're putting in for the storm overflows and obviously a significant program to get our spill numbers down. And you're absolutely right.
The target for that is also wrapped up in the bonus aspect of the returns that we might get given the outstanding status we've got for the business plan. So if we achieve our spill target by the end of the period, then obviously we get the extra 30 basis points as part of that assessment. So we are very much targeted on it. Yes, over the last couple of years, we have seen significant rainfall, which having had all the monitors put in by the end of 2023, we can absolutely see what's going on in the network and in the system, and we are now starting to tackle those. And at the half year, we talked about the fact we've chased out some 10,000 spills from the system, and we are focused on doing that. But you're absolutely right.
The weather impact over the last couple of years has meant now we've got all the monitors in, we can see what's happening, and we're going to get on and tackle those. Now, in terms of you noted EPA and EPA star rating, again, another one of those aspects of the 30 basis points potential increase to base returns if we achieve EPA four-star status by 2028. I think that date, obviously, gives some understanding of the work we need to do to try and make sure we can achieve that. And the EA are out to consultation and are considering what the framework will be for the EPA assessment currently. So that will come into force from 2026 onwards, and they're out to consultation with that.
So our target to achieve the four stars to get the 30 basis points has to be by 2028, and obviously, our plans will be honed to achieve that. And I think the last question you had, Mark, was around how do we view the dividends and areas like REM, given I think what you're referring to, certainly on the REM side, will be what's going through the Special Measures Water Bill that's obviously progressing through the various reviews that it needs to undertake through Parliament. I mean, obviously, we will await to see where that lands, and that will be over the coming weeks, and we'll see what that has in terms of legislation and any reflections that we have on that. I'm sure the board will pick up.
In terms of the dividend adjustment that we made when we had a fine for an environmental prosecution, I think I said at the time this was a one-off, and it was something that we thought we needed to do to reflect that we were listening to the situation that was building around water companies more generally and water company performance. Now, obviously, the Special Measures Bill is picking aspects of that up, and we will await where that lands in the coming weeks.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Ajay Patel of Goldman Sachs. The line's now open. Please go ahead.
Good morning, and thank you very much for the presentation. I think there's more clarity on the questions I had earlier, and maybe I didn't hear the answers correctly. The way I look at this, and I think it's on slide 10, you have this bridge of the financing, is that if you put in place this equity issuance and the outperformance that you achieve, it looks like, from what I can see, it'll probably be towards the top end of the leverage range that you've highlighted. And then I'm just thinking about levers here, and then a little bit more granularity to that picture. I guess there's no assumption of any disposals here, so that potentially is a lever in the event there is any fines, for example.
And then in terms of what you've assumed on the outperformance, is it mainly financing, which you've historically been very successful at, or is it actually the other parts that really become? Is there any rough proportions so we can understand? Is it something that you will build up, like your ODI capability and the outperformance you're going to achieve on that side, or something that's tried and tested and you've achieved before in the sense of the financing side? I think that, to start, would be really helpful.
Yeah, of course. Morning, Ajay. Thank you very much for your questions. Ajay, I'm not sure that we have had a question on slide 10 earlier, so perhaps you didn't miss here. But I think on slide 10, there's a little bridge in there that gives some indication of one of the ways we've thought about the size of the rights issue today. And that's clearly just saying, "Look, we can see there's growth in RCV that we're needing to fund. The 3.2 billion investment equates and comes through in terms of an RCV growth over time, and you can see GBP 2 billion of that. If you were going to assume a 60% gearing level and debt funding for that, that leaves you with an amount that otherwise you would think about funding.
But we are going to drive some outperformance, and so our equity funding that we're raising is the £490 million. And that's really all that bridge is saying. If you want to try and triangulate it in terms of how we come up with what we think is the right number, we've done an awful lot of modeling to make sure we're very comfortable with that. This was just a way of triangulating it so that people can understand where we've got it from. And Laura, do you want to comment in terms of the gearing and how we see that profile over the five years?
Yeah. So obviously, subsequent to the rights issue, the gearing levels will come down towards the bottom end of the range that we've given. What we then see over the five-year period is a front-end loading of the CapEx profile you may have spotted in some of the slides, which means that we will see then the gearing move back up a little within that range, and then it remains relatively flat on our sort of core scenarios over that five-year period.
To answer your question about perhaps a little indirectly around where we sit in that range, what we have done is look at a number of scenarios, as Susan touched on earlier, around where we might end up in terms of both outperformance, in terms of the ongoing investigations, should that not outturn where we believe it currently would, and therefore understanding what that means in terms of the gearing levels, and based on all of that, we believe that we're in a good position with the benefit of this rights package and the mix of debt that we envisage continuing to remain within that gearing range that we've provided, notwithstanding a number of scenarios that we've looked at.
Thanks, Laura.
Just on the outperformance, is the bulk of that financing, or is it in any rough sense that you can give us that half of it's financing, the rest is to Totex and ODIs, or?
I think what we've tried to do is look at it in a number of different scenarios, and obviously, we're very much at the start of that five-year period where there are a number of different, whether that's market volatility, whether that's challenging ODIs, or whether that's Totex performance. There's a number of elements. So what we've really tried to do is, rather than split it into those buckets in terms of financially, look at individual components and scenarios that might outturn and still provide a level of confidence in being able to deliver that 7% real RORE over the period. So we are not providing sort of further splits of definitive numbers in each of those buckets, but are confident in our ability to deliver that level of outperformance over the period as a whole.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Jenny Ping of Citi. The line's now open. Please go ahead.
Thanks very much. Good morning. Just one question from me. Just to understand the Totex outperformance piece and the operational underperformance that you've had over the last two years. C an you confirm, as we look into 2025, 2026, i.e., the first year of next AMP, where really you're going to be matching very closely in terms of your cash OpEx that's going out of the door versus what the FD OpEx is delivering? On the FD numbers, I think it's the low 300s, so your run rate in the last two years has been about GBP 400 million. So can you just confirm that to give us a bit more confidence around that Totex outperformance piece, please? Thank you.
Yeah. Jenny, I think it's probably safe to say, if you look at consensus numbers for the first year of the new regulatory delivery period, I think those appear on consensus to reflect more DD than FD. That's probably the first thing that I would say. And therefore, we obviously need to make sure we're giving some guidance and make sure the market is fit for the changes from DD to FD and the improvements that we've seen from that. And then obviously, today, we are talking about the fact that we are driving for headroom in our performance and looking at a 5.1%-7% return. So I think if you're looking at the consensus guidance for 2025, 2026, I would suggest that that doesn't yet reflect DD to FD, never mind FD to today.
So I think that's something we will be obviously giving more guidance upon in terms of our Capital Markets Day, which we're having on the 13th of March, and I'm sure we'll be able to give some color on that. Now, in terms of operating costs, you've seen at the half-year presentation that we gave last November, we talked about the fact we were driving a GBP 86 million target in terms of cost base. That comes from, obviously, the integration work we've been doing with not just Bristol Water over the last regulation period, but certainly Surrey and then our overall efficiency targets we've been driving to get the cost base in the right place. And we are largely through a good program with that as we sit here today. I don't think there's any other updates or guidance from today, Jenny.
So effectively, you're saying you can reach the Ofwat FD OpEx numbers from year one?
Yeah. We'll provide more guidance as we move forward, but I think, obviously, some of the challenges we've had around the Totex over the last few years have been reflective of some of the elements like power, which gets reset as we move into the next financial period, some of the pressures around storm overflows and drought, which we've invested to make sure that for the long term we are resilient and sustainable. And some of those elements then are adjusted as we move into the next financial period. We've received the returns on some of the investment that we've made, including things like the Green Recovery accelerated investment, which we've invested without the revenue returns accompanying it in this financial period, but which come through our income statement in the next year as well.
We are working hard to ensure that next year we are aligned with the FD position and indeed targeting that 7% RORE outperformance over the period as well.
Thank you very much.
Thank you. Our next question comes from John Campbell of Bank of America. The line's now open. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. I've got two. First one is on the timing of investigations. I think you've got the Ofwat one, the EA one, the Brixham one with the Drinking Water Inspectorate. Do you have any new details you can provide today in timing of the outcomes of those investigations? That's my first question. Second one is a more broader for the whole U.K, water industry. So we saw, I think, just before Christmas, even after final determinations had been published, that the government had asked regulators, including Ofwat, for ideas to promote economic growth. Do you think this bodes well for something like an AMP8 Green Recovery style program? And if you reckon that it does, when do you think that could occur? I suppose maybe mid-AMP when firms have bedded into their AMP8 business plans, etc. Thank you.
Great. Thanks. Good morning, John. Thank you very much for your questions. Perhaps if I start with a second one first, and then I'll go back to your first one around investigations. So let's be really clear. This is going to be a period of record investment, GBP 3.2 billion that's going across the regions that we serve, the biggest investment that we've had in a five-year period since privatization. So this is a really big program, and it's going to deliver economic growth for these regions, especially in and around Devon and Cornwall. It will be supporting and creating over 2,000 new jobs, and this is a significant program in and of itself. We have set ourselves up for success and to deliver.
We have our Capital Alliance who have been in play for a good number of months, and we have already put across to them over GBP 600 million worth of projects for them to start delivering against. So we are going to have a fast start and a hard start to the regulatory period, which we'll see as investing and driving some of those improvements that we all want to see for the environment and for our customers. So is there a potential as we move through that period to accelerate other investment? I'm sure as we start delivering and then getting through the program, we'll be thinking about the next regulatory period. But let's be clear, the position that we've put out today, our financing package, our comprehensive position gives us a good, strong balance sheet to underpin what comes next. So that's that question.
The first one around timing of investigations, I'd love to be able to sit here, John, and say, "Yes, we know the dates of when those are going to conclude, but we don't have any more information or updates to give you." Obviously, the regulators work diligently through these aspects, and it does take time. So as soon as we have any more information, we will be updating.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Ahmed Farman of Jefferies. Your line's now open. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hi. Thank you. My question is also on slide 10, where you're showing the, I guess, the funding or financing rates. I mean, from your comments, I take it you're obviously quite comfortable on delivering the 7% RORE and implicitly the outperformance, but you are, I think, as I understand at least, not giving a lot of visibility on the profile at this stage. My question is that in that context, are you comfortable on the financing plan if the indicative outperformance was to be much lower, that there is enough headroom with the equity rate that you're doing to be comfortable on the balance sheet under that situation, or is that a situation where you would be considering potentially disposal of certain assets? So I'm just trying to get a sense of the headroom embedded within the financing program you're setting up today. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you. Good question. So perhaps I'll just reiterate the point on the sale of assets. Look, we have Pennon Power. I briefly mentioned it earlier. Those are assets, and we have our business-to-business retailers at the Pennon level as well. We always keep under review what we think the position is to maximize shareholder value, and we will obviously consider that over time and on an ongoing basis. Laura, do you want to talk about the gearing point and headroom aspect?
Yeah. So I think, again, as we've said earlier, we've looked at a range of scenarios taking into account a number of considerations, including things like the investigations and so on, and the confidence in the outperformance. I think for a range of reasonable scenarios, the rights issue puts us in a really strong position, and we're confident with that. But obviously, we will continue to keep all options under consideration to ensure that we can remain within that gearing policy as well.
Thank you. At this time, we currently have no further questions, so I'll hand back to Susan for any further remarks.
Great. Thank you very much. Well, thank you, everybody, for your time this morning. Obviously, we're incredibly excited about the delivery that we are on with for our customers and for the environment and the investments we'll be making in the period of 2030. It is a record level investment we will be making, and we believe that we obviously have talked through this morning what is a comprehensive financing package that underpins what will be a great period of delivery. So thank you for your time this morning.
Thank you.
Thank you all for joining today's call. You may now.