Pennon Group Plc

Good morning. I'm Susan Davie, Chief Executive of Pennon, and welcome to our half-year results presentation for 2022-23. Over the past six months, turbulent political and macroeconomics, escalating cost-saving pressures, and the continued war in Ukraine have weighed heavy on the UK and globally, creating an extraordinary degree of uncertainty and volatility. Closer to home and in our region, climate change has driven the hottest, driest year in the South West since records began. Against this backdrop, Pennel's results for the half-year 2022-23 demonstrates we are continuing to deliver fundamental services as we execute our strategy and drive sustainable long-term growth. Our business model ensures we have the headroom and capacity to be fleet of foot to respond with agility when it matters most, whether facing a challenge or an opportunity. What gives us that headroom is threefold, driving efficiency and performance, delivering on our plans and having a strong, robust balance sheet. We also couldn't do this without the pioneering spirit of our 3,000 employees who see opportunities when they see obstacles and show extraordinary care for customers, communities and each other. Turn to the highlights for the half year 2022-23 and starting first with the environment and the outcomes from our largest environmental programme in 15 years. This has been a half year in which we have been particularly focused in our catchments, delivering tangible benefits on a community by community approach. Stretching from Bristol to Bournemouth, Devon and Cornwall, including the Isle of City, we operate across a unique topography. Surrounded by water and with 860 miles of coastline, our network stretches over 22,000 kilometres. And as Britain's most treasured tourist region, our infrastructure regularly flexes to accommodate a population that swells from 3.5 million to over 10 million visitors in the summer months. Nine bathing water investments have been accelerated to support water quality improvement so far in K7, with one in the half-year 22-23, and I am pleased to say we have achieved 100% bathing water quality standard for the second consecutive year running, with 99% achieving good and excellent status. We announced our water fit plans earlier this year. We are underway with investing £45 million over the next two years, targeting a reduction in the use of storm overflows with a 50% reduction through the 2022 bathing season. With the climate crisis, it is important we remain focused on delivering our net zero objectives. And our plans across the three pillars have made progress this year, investing in an electric fleet, capturing carbon through our restoration of 2,800 hectares of peatland during K7 with 1,000 hectares delivered so far cumulatively, and developing our renewables capacity to support 50% of self-generation ahead of the 2030 target. We are continuing to invest across our asset base to support service outcomes, delivering a record amount of expenditure with a 30% increase this half year, representing £143 million of investment. Alongside our innovative operational ways of working, we continue to deliver against our business plan ODI commitments, and despite targets ratcheting, we are continuing to deliver 80% ahead or on track for Salvos Water, and 75% ahead or on track for Bristol Water. At Pennum, we believe every customer should benefit from what we do. Our investments aren't just in places and infrastructure. With rising food and power prices, we are focused on keeping customer bills as low as we can. Average bills for South West Water customers are lower in 2022 than they were 10 years ago. With our recently launched second Watershare Plus issuance, customers at South West Water and Bristol Water will be able to reduce their bills further this year at a time when it counts. We are also helping over 100,000 customers with specific affordability pinch points, and we are seeking to double those assisted by 2025. We are delivering over £78 million of benefits to customers at a time when they need it most, including our commitment to share the benefits of financial outperformance with customers through our second issuance of our unique Wardshare Plus scheme, with £40 million funded so far in K7 to give customers the option of a stake in the business, And they're saying to the water company, all money off their bill. And this is unique to our business. Robust financial and operational outcomes underpin the return on regulated equity, which for South West Water continues to double base returns for 2022-2023. And for the half year, we are delivering double digit return on regulated equity across the group. Driving out performance of plans across the group gives us options to go further faster within a regulatory delivery period, whether that's for reinvestment or for a timely sharing of those benefits with customers, lowering their bills. The outperformance delivered today in K7 is £225 million and that's supporting reinvestment this period through green recovery, water fit and additional water resources investments, as well as funding the WaterShare Plus scheme. Underpinning the business is a robust balance sheet delivered through long-term financial discipline. This half year, we have absorbed the impact of elevated inflation on power and interest costs, delivered significant operating efficiency, alongside record investment and ensuring the pension scheme continues to be in surplus. The water business has de-geared to 58% and there is hedging capacity for growth across the group of £500 million. Through our disciplined capital allocation, we have a sector-leading position on growth, both organically and through acquisition. The water business RCV is set to grow by 50% over K7, with our two business-to-business retailers profitably growing in a competitive market and £160 million earmarked for value-enhancing renewables investment across the UK. In summary, we're delivering fundamental service, executing our strategy and delivering long-term sustainable growth. Before we look at the financial results, recently I went to visit one of our new water resources, Hawk Store, which you can see just off the A30 in Cornwall. I couldn't talk about the half-year results without acknowledging the impact of climate change that we witnessed first-hand in the South West this year. And to bring that to life for you, I'm filming this today from Hawk Store on the western side of Bodmin Moor in Cornwall, joined by our new Drought and Resilience Director, David Harris. The southwest is particularly vulnerable to climate change given its 860 miles of coastline and adjacency to the western approaches of the Atlantic Ocean. The drought of 2022 for the South West is set to be the worst since records began over 130 years ago, with the hottest driest summer leaving river flows, groundwater levels and reservoir stocks depleted. Despite this, for the majority of our region, services remained unaffected across the group, continuing to supply Bristol, Bournemouth, the Isles of Scilly and the vast majority of Devon without restriction, thanks to the efforts, hard work and resilience of our teams using a quality first approach prioritising the delivery of clean, safe drinking water services to homes and businesses across the Greater South West. We have however needed to work innovatively and at pace in challenging circumstances to preserve supplies to Cornwall and a small part of North Devon with communities coming together to avoid using hosepipes. Just over six months ago, Hawkstall was a redundant China clay pit, a brownfield site and a lasting remnant of the Cornwall heartlands, where mining and manufacturing are forgotten symbols of a once prosperous past. Fast forward to today, and in just a matter of days' time, Hawksdale will become an important part of Cornwall's future, securing vital water supplies for our customers. Along with upgrading the Stannan Lake and Porth Reservoir, these additional resources will provide up to 30% of Cornwall's water supply for the future. It's a great example of where Pennon's pioneering spirit, agility and innovative thinking have delivered real benefits for customers and communities in real time. That pioneering spirit has also been evident in the way we have responded to the challenges, not just for Cornwall but for the wider region and the sector, and in the way we are approaching longer-term resilience. I'll hand you over to David Harris who will explain more. David joined the group recently with his previous experience of leading Water NSW through the worst drought in Australia's history and it's great for the region and the sector to benefit from his experience. Welcome David.

Thanks very much Susan. Over 90% of our current supply comes from surface water, rivers and reservoirs. Hawke's Tor is just one of a number of engineering projects we're progressing in tandem as part of a £75 million investment in securing supply, introducing further new water resources and with a focus on repurposing ex-quarries, dewatering mines and for the first time desalination. We've also delivered a number of firsts for the sector, working in collaboration with local government, regulators and communities. For example, in a first of its kind, our Stop the Drop campaign launched this month is already bringing together the collective might of the people of Cornwall, incentivising customers and businesses to work together to restore reservoir levels and save money. This is on top of the work we've been doing to support water efficiency with teams of people out door knocking. So far we've issued over 75,000 water saving devices from water butts to water saving shafts to have the potential to save more than 500 megalitres over a year. We continue to work around the clock using the latest artificial intelligence, drone and satellite technology to find and fix up to 2,500 leaks a month and have also introduced free find and fix services for customer side leaks, 30% of all leakage. Secondly, using our expertise from the Isles of Scilly, we're currently accelerating plans to introduce desalination units at a number of sites across Cornwall to treat seawater and produce either raw or potable water supplies. and to ensure our resilience to 2050 is in place now. Thirdly, and looking to the future and across the wider South West, we're also progressing our plans for a new reservoir in Bristol that will allow water to flow into the South West when it is needed most.

I hope you agree this is a great example of where Pennon's pioneering spirit, agility and innovative thinking have delivered real benefits for customers and communities in real time. I will now hand over to Paul to take you through the financials for the half year 2022-23.

Thank you, Susan, and good morning, everyone. As we've previously flagged, the current high inflationary environment does change the profile of the group's earnings, transferring it from the near term into future years. This change in profile does not impact the regulatory financial performance of our water businesses, which continues to be strong and sector-leading. The change in profile of earnings reflects the more immediate impact of higher power and financing costs, which are more than compensated for through higher inflation linked to revenues and RCV growth in future years. These power and financing costs are the two significant factors that result in an underlying profit before tax of £22.5 million compared to £90 million in the previous year. On a statutory basis, the group's profit after tax of £18.5 million compares to a loss of £22 million in the prior year, which included a significant one-off deferred tax charge related to the increase in corporation tax rates. The group's adjusted earnings per share have reduced in line with profits to £7.9 pence. The group's return on regulated equity increased in the period to 13.4%, driven by a strong financing outperformance, and underpins our interim dividend of £12.96, which increased in line with our stated sector-leading dividend policy. Looking at underlying profit before tax in more detail, there are a number of moving parts to highlight. Firstly, there is the full-year effect of the Bristol Water acquisition, which in last year's numbers reflected four months of Bristol Water's contribution, The full six months' effect this year adds 14.5 million of EBITDA before power costs. In terms of revenue, over the past few years, we've talked about COVID and the impact it's had. It's pleasing to see non-household demand has returned to pre-COVID levels, and it's also notable that overall demand has increased further from the already elevated levels that we've experienced through COVID. South East Water's revenues were 16.8 million lower period-on-period, due to regulatory revenue pass-back mechanisms. This contributed to SWF's average bill for 2022-23 reducing year-on-year. As expected, our power costs have increased by £24 million, reflecting both higher non-commodity usage charges and higher wholesale market charges. This position is over 95% hedged for this financial year, with the remaining sensitivity due to winter pumping requirements. Whilst there have been other inflationary cost pressures, including chemicals and consumables, our ongoing efficiencies have largely mitigated the impact. Pleasingly, Penn & Water Services' performance is continuing its positive momentum, fuelled by contract wins and the recovery from the COVID pandemic. EBITDA was £2.3 million, up 44% period on period. Around 30% of debt was indexed late through the half year, positioning as well in comparison to the sector and demonstrated by our sector leading effective interest rate of 5.8%. This current high inflationary environment has driven a 38 million increase in the group's interest charge, which has increased to 75 million. Whilst this is a significant impact on the P&L charge, it should be noted that the majority of the inflation element of the charge is non-cash. The cash interest cost remains in line with last year, having adjusted for the full six-month effect of Bristol. The water business's cash cost of interest remains low at 2.9%. We anticipate capital expenditure and delivery to be higher year-on-year, and that the half-year investment is 30% higher. This increase reflects investments in water quality and resources, including commencement of works at our new Alderney Water Treatment Works that uses the same state-of-the-art technology first deployed at our Mayflower Works in Plymouth. On wastewater, spend includes targeted investment to reduce pollution incidents and deliver on our WaterFit commitments launched earlier in the year. The group's net debt position remains sustainable with cash inflows from operations remaining strong and benefiting from the additional two months of Bristol Water contribution. A key focus in delivering this performance is our approach to cash collections. We are very aware that the cost of living crisis driven mainly by energy bills will mean that some customers may be struggling financially. We believe that nobody should worry about their water bill and we have a variety of initiatives to both identify and support customers in financial difficulty. In case seven to date, this approach has benefited over 100,000 customers, many of whom benefit from our social tariffs. This also helps to maintain our sector leading bad debt charge of 1.1% of revenue. Our corporation tax paid is lower this year at 3 million, reflecting both the lower profit level and super deduction capital allowances on higher spend levels. I have touched on interest and capex already, both of which are higher period on period, with the full year impact of Bristol contributing to this. Equity flows related to the final buyback tranche and our 2021-22 dividend result in an overall group net debt of £2.9 billion or £2.7 billion when acquisition-related non-cash fair value adjustments were excluded. The group has a strong balance sheet position with a relatively low gearing level, pension schemes in surplus and sector-leading effective interest rate on our debt. At a water business level, net debt was £2.7 billion at the end of September. With a £400 million increase in RCV to £4.6 billion expected by March 2023, in large part driven by inflation, our regulatory gearing has reduced to 58.4% below our thoughts notional level of 60%. We now anticipate that RCV will grow by around 50% over K7, up from 40% when we last reported. 20% of the increase relates to organic growth, with 30% driven by inflation. This higher level of RCV will drive higher annual revenues in future regulatory periods starting in 2026. Our agile and efficient financing strategy has positioned us well in the current macroeconomic environment. Our relatively low level of index-linked debt reduces the impact of inflation compared to industry peers, and together with our approach to hedging results in a sector-leading effective interest rate of 5.8%. This sustainable position reflects our debt portfolio mix, which has an average maturity of 15 years and includes a substantial proportion of floating-rate debt, which we hedge in line with the regulatory methodology to lock in our performance. Following the acquisition of Bristol Water, our level of index linked debt increased to around 30%, where previously our financing strategy positioned index linked debt at around 20% to 25%. In the last month, in line with this strategy, we've reduced the amount of index linked debt into line with our historic levels. We've achieved this through repaying Bristol Water's index linked bond at a level that will generate a £20 million non-underlying gain in the second half of the year, In addition, we've swapped 300 million of RPI debt to fixed through to 2025. Our future funding requirements continue to be steady at around 200 million per annum. This level covers both existing debt refinancing and capital investments. This run rate is in line with Ofwat's notional assumptions and ensures we are protected from the rising interest rate environment on new debt through the truant mechanism. To support the achievement of our net zero 2030 commitment and to mitigate the current high forward market energy costs, we are looking to make significant investments in renewable energy projects. As previously reported, we plan to deploy 160 million of capital into such projects, and we are currently in active discussions with a number of counterparties regarding the ownership and operation of renewable energy sites that range in generation capacity from 20 to 50 megawatts. These projects will be able to supply our water businesses with energy through power purchasing agreements, providing price certainty and de-risking our exposure to wholesale markets. Our Net Zero 2030 plan targets generating half of the 400,000 gigawatt hours of energy we currently use. Whilst we are continuing with the rollout of solar PV at a number of our operational sites, we believe our plans will enable us to meet our targets ahead of schedule and potentially go much further in terms of generation. In addition, to reduce our exposure to volatility and wholesale power, we maintain a dynamic hedging strategy and forward buy our energy requirements. These purchases are made in small tranches over time to spread the risk of market movements. Forward power prices have been particularly elevated since Russia's invasion of Ukraine and have further peaked post-June. The group has over 95% of energy needs hedged for 2022-23. Our de-risk positions for 2023-24 and 2024-25 are 60% and 30% respectively. These hedges have locked in prices around 30% below current market forward prices for these years, but are still elevated by historical standards. It is worth noting that the regulatory true-up mechanisms at the end of this period will partially mitigate the impact of these higher power costs. In line with recent announcements, we expect our full year results to be H1 weighted. Focusing on our expectations for the second half of this year, this now reflects a lower revenue expectation as we work with our customers and incentivise them to reduce usage in Cornwall. We are closely monitoring demand over the period of the incentivisation to the end of December and are also anticipating a sustained reduction for behavioural change. Whilst lower demand will reduce revenue in the year, any revenue shortfalls to the final determination would be recovered in future years. In line with the usual seasonal usage, we expect our power usage and therefore costs to increase in the second half of the year. Full year power costs are expected to be 50 million higher than last year. Whilst we are delivering efficiencies on other costs, inflation is increasing and is likely to add further cost pressures into H2. Interest costs are expected to be lower in H2, out-turning for the full year in the region of 130 to 140 million. This reflects the active management of our IndexLink debt portfolio that I've described earlier. There are also some specific significant one-off items expected in H2, including our second 20 million Watershare Plus issuance, reducing revenue, Bristol Water integration costs of around 5 million, the Cornwall resilience schemes, including the customer incentivisation payment, And finally, the £20 million gain on the termination of the Bristol Water Index Link Bond that I mentioned earlier. Turning to the balance sheet, we expect the pace of investment to continue with the full year amount likely to be in excess of £300 million, which will include spend on water resource resilience in the Cornwall region. And as I have mentioned, we expect RCV to increase by around £400 million to March 2023, contributing to an anticipated RCV of £4.6 billion at the full year. And with that, I'll hand back to Susan.

Thank you, Paul. Whether it's been COVID, conflict or climate change, all have shown us how important it is that we value and protect our green and blue spaces, our environment and our natural resources. We've all become universally intolerant of our Victorian sewerage system, once revered worldwide for innovation. with storm overflows now seen as the unacceptable symbol of failing water quality in the UK. In response, we are already transforming the way we work ahead of any government-mandated changes, accelerating working across catchments locally as well as regionally, through partnerships and collaboration with customers, communities, businesses, organisations, local government, NGOs, landowners and the people who love our region and who live in our region coming together to start changing what we all do today. Supported by our £45 million investment in Waterfit, our plan for healthy seas and rivers, we already are starting to see results. This will be the second year of maintaining 100% bathing water quality for our region. Releases from storm overflows are currently 30% lower than in the previous year and 50% lower over the bathing season for 2022. We are on track to reduce releases from storm overflows to an average of 20 per overflow per year by 2025, using our SpillShore data, enabling 24-7 triaging of events, and we're investing £20 million in additional storm storage at 58 sites. WaterFit will also see us reducing our impact on rivers by a third by 2025, with further plans to achieve zero impact on rivers by 2030. Using our pioneering catchment management approach, we have now restored around 100,000 hectares, enhancing biodiversity through tree planting and investments in six of our wastewater treatment works this period will reduce phosphorus and ammonia. We are progressing our first ever bathing water pilots for the Dart and the Tavey and we're engaging communities in our plans. And in another example of our pioneering spirit, we are also ensuring data on water quality is more accessible, whether that's ensuring all our overflows are 100% monitoring by the end of this year, again ahead of target, and we will be launching WaterFit Live in early 2023, covering a third of the nation's bathing beaches with real-time data accessible to customers and communities. A key focus area for K7 is ensuring we are delivering a sustainable step change in reducing the number of pollutions. The deployment of our Pollution Incident Reduction Plan is delivering the maximum environmental benefit. In 2021 we had our best performance in 10 years and in 2022 we are on track for a continued sustained reduction. Compared to other regions across the country, our networks and assets have the closest proximity to watercourses. To mitigate risks, we are using predictive modelling. Using asset and weather data, we're adding to our data points by rolling out 9,000 sewer depth monitors in the network. We are using our joint venture with the University of Exeter, the Centre for Resilience, Environment, Water and Waste, to analyse root cause issues. The outcome of that modelling is driving our catchment focus plans. We've also increased our resource in our supply chain by 25% to deliver and intervene in over 260 hotspots since 2021. And we know that over 70% of issues on our network are caused by wet wipes, fats, oils and greases. And we are running activity programmes to influence customer behaviour, as well as clamping down on illegal connections to our network. We know we have more to do and we are moving in the right direction. With ratcheting targets, we do not anticipate a change in the EPA rating for 2022, but we are following a trajectory to achieve four-star status for 2024. This regulated period will see us investing over £1.4 billion across the group and across the asset base. With 95% of our capital programme under framework contracts, we are investing across water and waste assets and these investments alongside our innovative operational ways of working means we continue to deliver against our business plan OJ commitments, delivering for customers and communities. On the water side of the business, across the group we have been focusing on water quality. Investing in granular activated carbon technology to further improve the taste and appearance of water supplied coupled with a step change in our service reservoir maintenance. All critical for ensuring top quality drinking water for our customers. At a time when resource levels are under pressure, delivering on leakage reduction plans is ever more important. We've been using satellite technology, investing in acoustic loggers and fixing more leaks than ever before, with a leakage plan yielding sustainable results. On the wastewater side of the business, we're investing in storage schemes through our WaterFit investment to hold back flows and reduce the use of storm overflow releases. We're investing in 58 storm storage schemes, increasing hedging and capacity at treatment sites and mitigating risks with an accelerated mains replacement programme and delivering nine bathing water schemes with one this half year. This is underpinning our Pollutions Reduction Programme, supporting our bathing water outcomes and ensuring we remain sector-leading in reducing internal sewer flooding incidents. Even though ODI targets are ratcheting, we are continuing to deliver 80% ahead or on track for Salvas Water and 75% ahead or on track for Bristol Water. As we share best practice across both businesses, there are opportunities to achieve more. At Pennon, we believe every customer should benefit from what we do, with customers receiving 78 million of benefits so far in K7. And our unique WaterShare Plus scheme, with our second edition currently underway, includes Bristol Water customers for the first time and allows all customers to save money or take shares in the business. We continue to work hard to keep customer bills as low as we can. Average bills for South East Water customers are lower in 2022 than 10 years ago and £10 lower than the previous year. Our affordability toolkit has unlocked £28 million of support for customers across our region, with over 100,000 customers accessing one or more of our schemes and plans to double the number of customers benefiting from social tariffs to 2025. Ultimately, the more we can do to help customers save water, they will save money. From our innovative Stop the Drop incentive to water efficiency advice, we have plans to roll out 70,000 smart meters by 2025, as well as extending our free customer leak repair program. We have issued 72,000 free water efficiency devices in 2022, including the new free water initiative, saving water and saving runoff. The South West is a region, given its dependency on agriculture and tourism, that experiences large socio-economic challenges with low productivity, low pay and pockets of deprivation, particularly in urban and coastal areas, resulting in low economic growth. At the same time, the South West population is getting older, with those aged between 17 and 24 believing they need to leave the region to get on. All this places an even greater responsibility on Pennant as the largest employer in the region and as a living wage employer, ensuring employees earn a fair wage for a good day's work. Given this, we're announcing plans to double our apprenticeship and graduate schemes to 1,000 by 2030 and will offer 5,000 work placements to school children. Over the same period we will continue to support local charities and good causes providing a million pounds of support to those communities. Our business model of driving outperformance across the group gives us options to go further faster within a regulatory delivery period and be agile to respond to whatever the circumstances. The group cumulative outperformance delivered today across the group of 9.5% in K7 equates to £225 million, which is supporting reinvestment in the period underpinning green recovery, water fit, water resources investment and our acceleration of returns to customers. For the half year, we've delivered double-digit outperformance of 13.4%, outperforming in the current macroeconomic environment, with our sector-leading financing outperformance outweighing the TOTEX contribution. We are forecasting a positive contribution from ODIs in 2022-2023. Post our acquisition of Bristol Water, we are on track to integrate the business, bringing together the best of the best to improve services for customers across the group and deliver synergy savings, deploying our proven integration blueprint, which is focused on creating common systems and processes and driving supply chain efficiencies. The licence change and statutory transfer is anticipated in early 2023. We are deploying our proven integration blueprint ahead of that date, creating common systems and processes and unlocking economies of scale. Funding changes have already been taking place, with a free-to-foot response given the macroeconomics, with a 2040 bond of £40 million repaid, giving rise to a £20 million benefit. We are on track to deliver £20 million per annum of synergies by 2025 across the group from the merger. Turning to our business-to-business retailers, Penn & Water Services and Water-to-Business, we continue to see strong financial performance building on the base in 2021-22. With a continued focus on the customer experience, the two businesses have the lowest customer attrition in the market and are winning new contracts in H1-22-23. In summary, Prosper will be growing in a competitive market. As we look forward to PR24, whilst there are barriers to overcome with new legislative requirements and an ever-increasing need for resilience driving significant investment, we are well placed to respond. There will be significant environmental investments driven by the new legislative requirements responding to the Government's new Environment Act, alongside ensuring we continue with investments to secure on-growing drinking water quality, given our quality-first priorities. In summary, our half year has shown resilient performance for Pennon, with robust fundamentals ensuring we are well placed. We continue to execute our strategy and drive long-term sustainable growth for the benefit of all. Outforming our financial targets affords us the agility to reinvest and be fleet of foot, underpinned by a healthy balance sheet. At the same time, we are doing more for customers and communities than ever before. Our bills are lower than they were 10 years ago. We are helping all customers by accelerating our watershed plus second issuance, while supporting 100,000 of those customers most in need. And we're delivering the step change we all want for our rivers and seas, for the great South West and for generations to come. We're driving a record 30% increase in investment. We're delivering £225 million of outperformance, allowing us to reinvest in environmental schemes. All delivered with tons of people doing great things for customers and each other, delivered in the right way. Thank you.