Severn Trent Plc

Good morning and welcome to the 7Trend results presentation half year Q&A session. We've got myself, Helen and the entire senior team here and of course the new chief exec of 7Trend, James Jessick is also with us and obviously this is my final results presentation so we'll be trying to get lots of questions on the business topics and on the results. We're pleased with our performance over the last six months and we look forward to taking questions on them. So Sarah, over to you first.

A good morning. Oh, well, we knew the day would come, Liv. To simply say thank you feels way too small given everything you've done. But until I think of something better, I'll just leave it with thank you. James, a much deserving successor. Super thrilled, super excited for you, for the team and for everything that lies ahead. But I guess it is on with the show. So a couple of questions from me, please, on the results today. Firstly, on that ODI guidance upgrade, I mean, you could have waited until deeper into winter to upgrade, but you didn't. Wondering what gives you conviction to upgrade that guidance today? Then a cheeky half question, please, on the AMP8 total ODI guide. Do we get to increase that by 15 million pounds today too? I suspect the answer is no on that. And then the final one, please, and while we're on the outperformance topic, but parking ODIs, wondering what other tools are in the 7Trent toolkit that can contribute to sustained strong total outperformance in the next few years, and I promise I'm not asking numbers, just more initiatives and areas of opportunity. Thank you.

Brilliant. Okie dokie then. So first of all, thank you very much. There are 11,700 renters that wear their socks off every day to land that performance and they will be really pleased that we've started strongly. So let's go for the half question first. We're not giving you more of an upgrade than the at least 300 million. So it is a strong first six months and we've still got four and a half years to go, but we will keep that under review and we'll share more news at the right point in time. In terms of why we're so confident, I'm going to have to say, but I mean, fundamentally, you'll have seen we're saying three things. The first thing we're saying is that about 90% of measures are green, and that means we're doing very well across the entire basket of ODIs, and that's what gives us confidence, because you will always have some ups and downs over the winter period, as you said. The second thing is quite a lot of measures, they do close off at the calendar year end. So there are, I remember, a number of measures where we're actually 10 and a half months through the performance and that gives us a chance to give some indication of those. So that's also helpful. Pollution, spills are good examples there where they're almost complete for the year, which helps us give clearer guidance now at this stage than maybe later in the year. And the third thing is that we're just really getting into our mojo operationally. It's a brand new five year period. We felt confident that now that the measures were against the sector, they're like for like against everybody else. We always thought that our overwhelming strong performance would come through and that's beginning to come through. So, Steph, which of the measures are you excited about on the ODIs?

Yeah, so we're doing really well across the piece, but it's the big three that we're really excited about, so spills, pollutions and leakage. I've just talked briefly about leakage. You know it's a three-year roll-in measure, so we've got two strong years in the bag already. We're on track to deliver our eighth year hitting the leakage target. We're finding and fixing more leaks than ever. We recovered really quickly after the summer, despite the fact that we had a third more bursts than we'd normally see during that period. We're doing some great work with Pegasus units to reduce pressure, which also means we see less leakage. So we think we've done really well for the rest of the AMP.

Now, going on to your second question, which is just wider, what gives us confidence for the future over the next five to 10 years? I think there's a couple of areas I'll go to. So I'm going to hand it to Helen first of all, because financing is important in the sector. We do own that financing outperformance. And we've had a very strong last couple of years, actually, on financing. So I'll get to Helen to talk about financing. I then think it's worth getting into Totex, and I'll get to James to talk about partly why the PCDs are an upside for us. Remember, we're guiding to up to £50 million on PCDs, but also on Totex overall and give some sense of it. And the parts of it that I think you'll talk through is some of the innovation we're putting in place and some of the strategic decisions we've made on insourcing and plug-and-play. And then I think I'll just get Shane to mention, when you look at the future, there is going to be more opportunity for RCV growth. That stores, it locks in long-term stored value. And I'll get Shane maybe to talk through what we think is going to come next in the RCV growth opportunity above and beyond the current locked-in price here.

So, Helen. Yeah. So, hi, Sarah. Thanks for the question. I think, you know, we talked about in the results about our financial strength. and I believe that underpins our ability to continue to outperform our financing. I'm really pleased we've been able to guide today to 60% to 65% gearing by the end of the AMP, and I think that demonstrates our commitment to maintaining that financial strength as we go into the next AMP. But if you look at our financing specifically... Our structures work for us in terms of we've got one of the lowest index linked financing in the proportion in the sector. That's really worked for us certainly over the last five years and is continuing to now. But we've also had a very specific programme about diversification. And over the last six months, we've hugely diversified our sources of finance in terms of geographic financing. And we've recently welcomed another five banks into our financing as well. So there's so much positivity out there in the market, so much demand for our financing. With the tighter spreads in the sector, I'm extremely confident that as we go out to the market, we'll continue to raise financing significantly lower than the cost that the regulator allows. Very good. James?

Hi Sarah, first of all thank you for your kind words, hugely appreciated. I guess when you look at the size of the plan that we've got for Ampay, it gives us loads of opportunities to actually deliver more for our customers, more for the environment, and of course more for our shareholders. I think what we're really focused on, what I've been focused on, is how do we innovate, how do we create more efficiency into our programme, to not only deliver a bigger bang for our buck, but also ensure that we have plenty of choices. Now some things that I've shared with you previously are around things like innovation we've done around AI and how we improve our design, so that will create a lot more efficiency in that space, but also our plug and play program where we're using far more modular solutions to increase efficiency in our capital delivery. So there's lots of things that we're doing and of course we're always happy to share.

Very good. And I guess what's going to come next, Jane, in terms of outperformance, possible outperformance on Totex and RCV growth?

Yes. We focus on RCV growth at the moment. So whilst we have 60% nominal RCV growth, there's an opportunity to put forward additional cases to Ofwat. These are called the reopeners. It's quite similar to Green Recovery where we got 500 million. So that was additional RCV growth. There is a high bar, though, for this. I should just be clear. It's not super easy. So you've got to be on track with your capital program. You're going to be able to demonstrate that your supply chain has capacity and you've got capacity to deliver more. And they are large business cases. As you've seen, PR19, Green Recovery, PR24, you're going to submit quite a lot of evidence to Ofwat to get these approved, and you've got to have strength in the balance sheet. So there is a high bar, but Ofwat will be publishing further guidance in December and will be responding to that. So you'll probably have two – we've seen there's two streams. There's a fast-track route, which you'll be funding next year, or there's a slow-track route, which runs over two years. I guess you can work out which one we're going to go for, Sarah. But in terms of the quantum, until we have the final methodology from off on December, we probably can't comment any more on that.

Very good. Fantastic. Sarah, you can come back later if you've got any more questions. I'm going to hand to Dominic now. Dominic.

Hi there. I think you're going to be getting quite a lot of recurring comments this morning, Liv. So, first of all, clearly, congratulations on your next adventure and also in a decision. And also, clearly, I think the Water Institute will be a poor place in your absence. I look forward to hearing what you're going to be getting up to next. Maybe, I don't know, sumo wrestling training. That might be something we can hear about. And, James, clearly, you're also going to be sitting there thinking, oh, my word, I've got big shoes to fill, so I'm sure you'll be fine. A couple of questions from me, please, actually. One, actually, Liv, on your decision to step down, could you give us some words as to In your experience, what do you think has happened to the role of the CEO in the water sector? Do you think the special measures bill that came through has had any impact in your decision to step down? And do you think that it's having an impact on the ability to attract, retain sort of senior staff? The second question I've got is on your 13% Rory that you're guiding for 25, 26. You're basically saying, look, it's going to be the 13% because we've got higher inflation, but on the normalisation, the ODIs look like They're going to be nothing out of the ordinary this year versus the five-year guidance. The Totex looks like you're guiding to potentially more outperformance to come or efficiency, which I guess might be reinvested. And financing is financing. So if we normalise for inflation, is it fair to say that that 13% Rory isn't going to be – materially different to what we'd now expect for the fall at bay. And third question, apologies on something that I've been sort of thinking about, which is on your low rainfall. I think the Met Office is suggesting we're going to have a very dry winter as well following the dry summer, where it doesn't look like it today. Are you concerned at all about your water resources in your region and what can you do to give sort of long-term resilience? Thank you.

Brilliant. What a full range of questions. There's nothing left, I think, after Dominic's done those three. So the first thing is, no, the special measures is totally fine. So let's be really clear on that. And there are, God, there are thousands of people internally that would love to be chief exec at 7Trend, never mind until you get to externally. So we are an absolutely lovely company that employs beautifully cheerful people that does an amazing mission based in a fab part of the country. So, no, I fundamentally disagree that the special measures would have any impact on the seven-term role being anything other than highly, highly attractive. And it's totally unrelated. I've been here nearly 12 years. And I used to believe that chief execs, I guess, you kind of like you go through the first five, six years and then you unravel your first wave of bad decisions. And then you go through another wave of it. You've got to unravel your second wave of bad decisions. And then eventually you wake up and you realize you've got amazing successes internally and the job actually at a certain point in time. is you've got to hand over to the next generation. They're going to be the perfect answer to the next wave, and that's what we've got. I know James is going to be a rock star. I know the senior team are fab, and I think this is the right time. So I'm not going for another job. I always said I'd never apply for another job whilst I was at 7Trend. So I will eventually take another job. I'm not going to sit in my lycra and walk the dog every day. But there is no plan. The plan is for the next few months to be sat on James' shoulder, helping him out as he picks up the role. So that's the first one, is that it's a brilliant job, and the company are lucky to have James, and James is lucky to have the job. Now, on the second, I don't actually quite make the same maths as you on the Rory. So I hear your point on the 13% for this year, that a whole chunk of it is either financing or inflation. Yes, but if we add up for the five years, not the same. So we've got £300 million worth of outperformance. That's chunky. That's decent in anybody's percentage Rory number. We've got the outstanding status as well, which is 30 basis points. That's chunky in anybody's number. And we've always said that there will be more outperformance across other areas. We'll be looking to land that. Financing is part of it. We've guided to at least zero on Totex. We've said that there are some areas like bioresources where we are a sector leader. It's likely that outperformance might come down the line. Just not ready to call it yet. And then, of course, we're having a very strong start. So we're calling at least 300 now. Every single member of the 7TREP family will be looking to try and improve that over the next couple of years. So, for others, they might need to rely solely on financing and on inflation. The seven trend, not true. And if you look at our history, what you tend to find is when you look at the bars over a five-year period, all of them begin to look good down there. You begin to see some really good performance in a whole range of performance areas. So that was that one. Now, low rainfall again. So I hear it because the EA have published a whole lot of drought situation messages, and they're right to do that across the country. But if you actually look at our reservoirs, and that's what's interesting, is we have – I'm going to pass to Bob now to give him an update. And he's going to take you through three things. One is don't forget the sources of water we have. Two is we're going to give you some news in terms of latest levels. And the third thing is to remind you of our track record of the last time we did actually have a hosepipe ban. So Bob, on to those three.

Yeah, great. So 1995 was the last time we had a hosepipe ban, of course. And as you know, Dominic, we've got our water comes from three main sources, underground in our boreholes, from rivers and from reservoirs. So I guess the thing that people really notice, of course, over the summer is the low reservoir levels. And this summer was a hard summer for us. We worked really, really hard to avoid having to put a temporary use ban on again, which we managed brilliantly. A combination of asset-related interventions and great customer comms. But the great news is actually we've actually had a really wet autumn so far. So we're in good shape. In fact, our biggest reservoirs around the Derwent area in Ellen Valley each went up by more than 10 percent over this last weekend. So they're all in really good shape as it happens. So I understand the question, but we're in in good, good order. Thank you.

Very good. And I always think the interesting question is to go back to what was the performance in 2022, which was the last, like, driest year. And we're, like, 15%, 17% ahead of where we were on exactly the same day in 2022. So we feel confident and in good shape. Marvellous. Very good. Okay. I think we'll go to Julius next.

Great. Thank you. And congratulations to the strong results. And obviously very sad to see you leave. So thank you all from my side and all the best to you, James. Just two questions for me. The first one on the 60% and 65% gearing. Just wondering, does that hold also if that additional topics through the real price comes in, or do you need to wait to assess how big that potentially could be? And then the second one on CEO succession, maybe to give you a little bit of an off-rent here, but What makes you think or what convinces you that 7trend, even without ULIF, can continue to be the highest quality company in the sector and continue to outperform on the ODIs like it has done in the past? It would be interesting to hear your thoughts. Thank you.

I'll do the second one first and then I'll hand to Helen and probably Shane just to talk through the gearing and the reopeners. I mean, so I am just one person. So I know I'm a big personality and I know I'm noisy, but I am literally just one person and I don't actually deliver any individual ODI, do I? So I guess we could argue I'm not the person who's going to fix the leaks. I'm not the person who's going to fix the spills. And I'm definitely the person who's going to stop pollution over the course of the next few hours. So that is the team. And what we've done, this whole team and also the 50S&T, is we've created a culture where our people love performance. And every single bone in our body, culturally, loves the fact that we are a leader in our sector. And that will make absolutely no difference that I'm not going to be here. It is ingrained in our DNA, is the desire to do brilliantly for our customers and to make sure that we perform every day. And if you go to any communication cell or any depot or any team meeting, then you'll see that that's how we're set up, it's how we thrive, is on that level of personal competition between teams, county plays county, the ability to kind of add value and find new ideas. And I know I'll continue. And don't forget as well, James was part of all that success. He did run operations in the transformational areas where we went from not doing so well in ops to doing brilliantly. So I guess you could argue James might have been involved in that. And then he's run capital during the era that we've gone from kind of like half a billion up to a couple of billion. You could argue he probably added some value in that space as well. So James has been a core part of that entire journey. So the only difference now is he's going to be in a different chair, but he'll still be bringing that same value and that same value add. So I've got no qualms at all. This performance will continue.

Yeah. Hi, Julia. Thanks for the question. Yeah, really pleased we've been able to give gearing guidance today, 60 to 65% at the end of the AMP. And from my perspective, that's what we're committing to. We've said repeatedly we're fully equity financed for the AMP. and that obviously remains true with that gearing. And we've also said we're committed to our stable credit ratings, so there's plenty of headroom in there for that. In terms of reopeners, still loads of unknowns, but my expectation is even with reopeners, we intend to meet that gearing level, so it shouldn't make any difference. But obviously, as Shane said earlier, we're waiting to see the financing rules to determine what that allows us to do. I think the other thing to note is I talked about in the presentation about 500 million capital efficiencies and obviously one of the things that will allow us to do is invest more. We want to invest as much as we can and that's why we're constantly driving for those capital efficiencies.

Brilliant. I think that answers the question, actually, because effectively, as Helen says, we've got the £500 million of targeted efficiencies. That gives us the chance to invest in re-openers. And of what are also very clear, that in the rules for the re-openers, there's a lot of companies in the sector that will need to make sure that, wherever the rules are set, they can afford to do it. A lot of companies are heavily geared. They'll need to make sure there's some kind of, like, in-period revenue and also some level of shadow RCV, I would imagine. So we'll expect to see those come through. Very good. Thank you, Julius. Okay, over to Pav.

Hi, team. Morning, and thank you for taking my questions. And, Liv, before I start, I'd like to echo congratulations on your successful leadership at 7Trent and wish you all the best, James, in your role as CEO. Sorry, I'm getting choked up.

Oh, I love it. Feel free to cry. I'm okay. If you want to cry, if you need tissues, I'm all good.

I'm good. I'm good. I think I'll be able to get through it. Thank you. My two questions, please. Firstly, it would be great to hear the team's thoughts on the CMA provisional determinations. Appreciate you haven't appealed, and I'm sure you don't regret that, but it would be good to hear what your thoughts on the determinations were and what you'd be feeding back to the CMA here. And finally, on that topic, how you think we should be reading these decisions into what will feed into eventually AMP9. And then my second question is your conversations with the government and the new Secretary of State. I guess I think our conversations with investors, what they want to see from the government is almost a pivot from, hey, we're holding the sector to account to actually saying, you know, we're working with the sector to deliver better outcomes. I guess my question is, are you seeing that change in the government? Do you foresee a change in that messaging coming, or do we need to see more delivery before we can start seeing the government sort of maybe being more cheerleading the sector as opposed to the current messaging? Thank you.

So let's start with the second one first. I mean, I don't know whether you saw Emma Hardy's speech from the British Water Conference, but it is available on public record from last week. And I think that actually gives really good evidence that the message is changing. I thought it was a very adult speech. I thought it was very engaging. And it did highlight that actually there is shared desire to see the sector succeed. So I think there is absolute desire by both Emma Hardy and Emma Reynolds for the sector to do well. Now, equally, though, your second point is true. The sector does need to deliver. So we're really conscious of that. It's why we did the transition spend, it's why we're going early with our capital, is that customers have seen pretty reasonably high bid increases after a period of clearly underinvestment, you could argue, across an entire sector. And then we've played catch up. And I think what's come out of that, though, is that there is clearly, you have to evidence to customers that by the time they pay that bill, they're getting really, really great value. And we're very conscious that's an imperative. So I think the government is definitely changing its style and manner, but it has got to hold us to account, and every company's got to step up and make sure they deliver their capital programme and deliver their performance targets. So I think it's a two-way contract, and we're confident of our part of it, and we think that will come across. The other thing to note, I think, from investors is that I think government has been fair on calling out amazing performance targets. So we've seen quite a few plaudits where government has called out the fact that we've had six years of four-star status. No one has mentioned it yet, so I don't want to get it in. Since we have had six years of four-star status, government has gone on record and praised that excellent performance. That wouldn't have happened prior to this. We had three, four, five years of four-star status, and it never got mentioned as a public record. We have seen that change as well. So I believe the moment has come when the rhetoric is moving. Now, Shane, CMA.

Yes, so I guess from an investor or non-appellant company perspective, there's probably two positives to call out. So the first is the cost of capital is 30 basis points higher, so that is helpful given, I think it was recommendation 23, government said the CMA should be setting a methodology for the cost of capital. So that's good, which is also equivalent to our 30 basis points for outstanding that no one has mentioned yet, so I'll just keep bringing that up. The other one is the frontier shift. So this has been a big debate amongst the regulators, is what's the ongoing efficiency challenge each company should be delivering? Regulators have been saying it's 1%, the economy has been delivering much less, and the CMA came out at 0.7%. So that's useful precedent going forward. I think the other interesting thing from the CMA cases is base costs. So none of the appellant companies raise base costs, but the CMA does a whole redetermination, so they've created their own models, which actually gives the sector less funding. So I wouldn't be worried about this in terms of the precedent setting, because it goes against everything CUNLIF has said, everything against the NAO has said, because it's statistics-led rather than engineering-led. But it's still an interesting point, which is the companies are getting less money generally on base spending. But from an investor perspective, I think it's good for the PR29, higher WAC and a lower frontier shift. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Mark, over to you.

Hey, Liv. Sorry. Hey, thank you for taking my questions. Wishing you all the best for the future, Liv, and looking forward to seeing what you're going to do next. Just two questions. Firstly, If there's one regret that you've got over the last 12 years at 7 Trent Live, what would it be? And secondly, if there's one piece of advice that you would give James as you hand over the reins to him, what would that be?

Oh, good questions. So there's one thing I've never done that I would have loved to have done. We've got the most amazing asset that brings water gravity fed from right up in the beautiful Welsh mid part of Wales down into Birmingham. And it's called the Ellen Valley Aqueduct. And it's absolutely gorgeous. And back in the day, if I've been the chief exec 40 years ago, I could have just popped down it, gone and seen it. We close it once or twice a year to do cleans. And I could have walked along it and seen it. And it's got beautiful, beautiful tiling right the way throughout it. I mean, no one ever sees it. Unfortunately, health and safety means I've got to do a two-week confined space course to actually be able to go down it. So I would have loved to have gone down it, but I've never found two weeks of just confined space training to go down it. So I guess that is my one physical asset regret that I've never seen. Other than that, the one unfinished business is clearly our performance on customer. So none of us remain happy that our CMEX scores are only mid-table. We'd like them still to be podium. So we've got good plotting plans to get there. And I know James will see those through and he'll be able to then say, I knew I'd fix it now that Garfield's out of the way. So that is, I guess, the thing that we as a team still look at ourselves and say, how can we not be podium on that metric? So that'll be that one. In terms of a piece of advice, I give the same piece of advice to every new chief exec. So I'll give the same to James, which is never go to bed without having done every single piece of work that is in your to-do list, because you've no idea what tomorrow brings. And sometimes you think tomorrow might be easier, might be lighter, there might be no issues. And it's amazing how often the next day has something totally different you couldn't have foreseen. So never go to bed without a clean inbox, never go to bed without all your documents marked up. You know, you can sleep less, but you can't make up time again. So that is my piece of advice to Every chief exec. Very good. Ace, thank you, Mark. Good, thoughtful questions. Alex, over to you.

Morning. Echoing previous comments, congrats, Liv, on a successful tenure at Southern Trent and all the best in future endeavours. Many congrats to you as well, James. Two from me, please. Just firstly on the at least 500 million capital efficiency. Just interested in how much of this is visible now. I'd assume buckets like procurement, I guess you'd have pretty strong visibility on already. And then also, which of those four areas you noted in the presentation give the most upside opportunity, given the at least 500 million guidance points? And then just on spills, where does the 27% year-on-year weather adjusted reduction compare to your planned run rate? And does this bring the target forward for when you expect to hit the 2030 number?

Very good. So, Helen, do you want to talk first about the at least 500?

Yeah, as I say in the presentation, Alex, we are always driving for efficiency. And you know, plug and play, we talked about that first in 2023. So we've been on this road for a long, long time. So we're really confident about the 500 million. We've been planning it for a while. We're well advanced on most of it. And so we're in really good shape on it. And that's why we're sharing it with you today, because we are really confident about it. In terms of the split, obviously, plug and play is a big part of it. But actually, it's quite evenly balanced across all of those areas, which is good. But with any of these things, as the programme moves through, things become more prominent than others. But it's pretty even split and we're well advanced with all of those areas that I talked about.

And I guess if there's any upside opportunity, I guess it would come from stuff like if we did get capital re-openers and we could do more of that plug and play, that would yield an upside. So I think at the moment we think about 500 million is the right number. But I guess for it to increase, then you'd have to believe other growth was happening. So at the moment, that's the right number based on 60% RTV growth nominal. If we ended up with more capital re-openers, we'd of course look to deliver more efficiently. In terms of spills, good point. So let's remind you, I guess, of our spills ambitions. Always good to rebase the target. So we said we wanted to get to around 14 by the end of the AMP. So under 14 by the end of the AMP. And we're expecting to do that this year, which would be excellent. Now, that's one of our conditions for outstanding status. So that would be quite neat to tick that off in the first year of the AMP as well. In terms of what we said we were going to do this year, is we said we'd do about a 25% year-on-year reduction. So that would have taken us down to 18.8. So we are ahead of that. Now, we are clear, though, that if weather was equalized for last year's abnormally biblically wet year, then we'd be about a couple of percent ahead of our run rate. And last year was particularly wet. It's not a normal year last year. This year looks like it will end up normal. So I've had people say to me, it's going to end up drier. We don't believe that. We think it will end up about normal. So we think this year's performance will end up in an about a normal year. And that means we're kind of like 40% ahead of a wet year, 27% ahead of a normal year. So marginally ahead of frack. We've got a lot of solutions that go live in the next few months. So that will give us a very strong start again to next year's number. So next year's number will have the benefit of all the solutions now in the next few months. And they'll get a full year benefit. Obviously, we didn't get a full year benefit for lots of solutions this year. Hopefully that all makes sense. Very good. OK, AJ, over to you.

I'd like to echo the thought. Thank you for everything you've done for this sector and I wish you the best in your next endeavours. And congratulations, James. I guess my question is more around the infrastructure services, the doubling of EBITDA, just to maybe get a little bit more understanding of

the components that drive the growth and any sharing arrangements that we need to think about and maybe if possible the profile of the step up so we're definitely not going to give you the profile of the step up but nice try and thank you for the nice comments at the start so I guess do we want to bring to life a bit of that I guess Helen do you want to start maybe James might jump in yeah I'll start yeah I love it AJ doesn't matter what we give you you always want more I

You're insatiable. But yeah, really pleased today to be able to share that we're expecting to double the EBITDA in infrastructure services. And it's a combination of all of the businesses within that. So, you know, obviously, you know, we're in green power. We've continued to grow green power. We've got a big solar scheme that's just in progress at the moment. In services, we've got opportunities to win new contracts, so that's a key focus for us as well. And, of course, property, we committed by 2032 to deliver £150 million of profit, and we've got some great stuff coming through. It's been tough in property over the last couple of years, as I'm sure you'll know, but we're starting to see that turn a corner now, so that's in there as well. And we're really pleased to share today the two acquisitions we've made, one in water and one in waste. And the opportunity we see here is for infrastructure services to really benefit from the growth that's happening in the water sector, specifically Seven Trent Water. But it also helps us secure that supply chain as well. So the opportunity is there and we're really, really excited about it.

And I guess it's worth bringing out how we think this actually underpins and helps deliver the capital programme. Because that's one of the other key parts is it's very nice to have an upside, isn't it? Nice dividend cover, nice growth. But actually, it also helps lock in and secure our supply chain.

Absolutely. I mean, Helen's covered the bulk of the business really well there. But this was a strategic play on our part. We identified across the sector. there were definitely going to be pinch points in certain aspects of the delivery. So, for instance, if you look at the Manager Renewal Program, most companies have doubled what they did in AMP7. We see that as a particular pinch point. So, identifying that early allowed us to get on the front foot and hence create and acquire these businesses. So, in the first instance, we really see this as an opportunity to really help ensure that 7trend

from a water perspective really delivers its capital program and not only delivers it but delivers it efficiently of course then in the future we can look at how we expand those particular businesses very good thank you ahmed thank you very much ahmed hi liv thank you from my side as well and congratulations to james um i just have sort of a couple of questions i wanted to go back to the Could you just sort of tell us a little bit more about the process as to where we are, what are the next milestones, and when you expect to get clarity on it? And then secondly, again, can you talk about the areas of focus within sort of this program? Because obviously you have a huge capital delivery program. already underway you know so that's already a huge amount of work etc so i'm just trying to understand what areas could be a focus that could come through the reopeners thank you

Very good. So I'll get Shane to take you through the process. I mean, in terms of delivery, you know, we've definitely got capacity later in the year. So let's be really clear on that. So if you look at our current run rates, we're calling 1.7 to 1.9 billion this year. But if you look at the insourcing we've done on some big areas, let's take Mainslay. So we've insourced the workforce now for Mainslay. We do minimal volumes this year internally, but that really grows in year two and year three. So, again, we'd have the capacity to do more with that workforce later in the year. So, and I guess when you look at some of the acquisitions we've just brought in as well, all of that just bolsters the fact that we've got a very, very large setup internally. And don't forget as well that the delay often for others on their capital spend is the design part. They haven't got the time to design it. Because we've got an in-house design team, and that means we were doing a lot of our design actually as part of transition spend in the latter part of the last AMP. We've actually fully designed by the end of year three this AMP. Again, that gives us the capacity for either teams to move on to pre-planning for AMP 9 or to do more work on reopeners. So I think that's where the capacity comes from in our mind for the reopeners. So Shane, how's the process work?

So in December, we expect the update to the methodology. Then for the fast-track process, you'd submit your business cases in May. You'd have a draft determination in July. And then the final determination in December, so you can then flow the numbers through the charge setting process. And then in terms of the areas, Soffort's identified 10 priority asset classes from an asset health perspective, the big one being gravity sewers, and then there's also assets at the water and wastewater treatment works and various tanks. You've also got assets relating to growth, so whether that's building more water resource capacity, for example, boreholes, or whether you're expanding wastewater treatment capacity to support, you know, new and faster growth in your regions. And then you've also got any new risks. So, for example, if new legislation comes in relation to cyber or PFAS, then there's an opportunity there. So that will exist all year, all amp round.

Very good. Dominic, coming back in for seconds.

Yeah, thank you for that. I thought I'd go to the end of the queue, but I've already done that. A couple of questions for me, please. Firstly, on the EPA, so congratulations on getting your fourth star again. The Environment Agency is clearly going through consultation at the moment about things, completed consultation, moving to five-star. I just wanted to know that if we're going to run under the new regime, would you be a five-star company or a four-star company? Secondly, I've actually got a follow-up on the PFAS question, actually. You mentioned that the new regulations coming potentially or the new risk on PFAS. I think your area is one of the PFAS-heavy areas of the UK. I don't think you've got much in your top text for AMP-A. Is it possible to give us some colour on the quantum of the potential PFAS expectation and how much we might be able to see in AMP-A, please?

Very good. So three questions there. I mean, so annoyingly, five-star doesn't come in for a few years yet. So the consultation's out there, but it doesn't arrive until 2028. So we'll all have to satisfy ourselves with four-star for the next few years, I'm afraid.

Does that mean that James might actually be a five-star CEO?

Do you know what? I've had the same thought. Dominic, it breaks my soul more than it breaks yours. So equally, as a top 100 shareholder in 720, he'd better be a five-star. company CEO otherwise I'm going to be coming and having more conversations so yeah so we only have only have four star for the next two years we're ten and a half months into the financial year at this stage and we're looking in good shape obviously long way to go six weeks to go it's never done till it's done but we're working our socks off to try and cross the line on four star for this year then I think next year is a four star and another four star and then you get to a five star so So it is actually quite a while away till we get to five star. And we've been looking at all the metrics possible for a long period of time. We've been shadowing them. We've been getting ready. And everybody around this table has every intention of moving to be a five star company when that goes live. Now, that's the first question. But, yeah, you're right. James will be the first five-star chief exec, and I won't be. On PFAS, I guess, just on the budget, Shane, do you want to mention how much money we had put aside? Because you actually have quite a nice bit of money actually dominating.

Yeah, it was over $100 million in relation to PFAS, plus an additional $300 million in rural water quality.

Exactly. So we've got a best bet of half a billion pounds in that water arena, just, I guess, to bring that to life. And typically, you're talking about tens of millions of pounds for a PFAS solution, not hundreds of millions of pounds per site. Again, just to contextualise it, that was that. And then, Bob, do you want to bring to life, I think sometimes it's interesting to contextualise ourselves against us versus France, say, when you listen to PFAS. Do you want to bring to life any thoughts on that?

Well, perhaps one of the key things is Marcus Wink, the chief inspector from the Drinking Water Inspectorate, actually gave a speech at the British Water Conference the other week. He was talking about comparing and contrasting Europe and the UK, and he put the UK quite a way ahead in terms of we've been looking at PFAS for a long while, actually since Buntsfield in 2005, when we had obviously the firefighting phones going to that system. So we're in really good shape. And for us, you know, in our region, we've got our Witch's Oak site up in Nottinghamshire that we know exactly the process we're going to put in place to take out PFAS. So it's actually all good news. Lots of research going into clever ways because it's easy to take it out. It's not so easy to deal with the stuff that you then end up with. And there's a lot of research going on to make sure we find really efficient ways of dealing with that. So we're in good shape.

Very good. Bartek, over to you.

Thank you very much, and I would like to join all the congratulations and thank you for all the great work and words. Just three questions, if I may ask, please. First of all, if we think about ODIs in AMP 8 and you compare it to ODIs in AMP 7 in terms of how much does it cost to earn additional 10 million of ODIs. I just wonder, is AMP 8 from this perspective much more challenging, meaning do you need to invest more to get the same result as in AMP 7 in terms of ODIs? That would be the first question. Second question on this 500 million of capital efficiencies. Maybe it was already discussed. Maybe I didn't capture it. Sorry for that. But what are you going to do with those efficiencies? Is it going to be reinvested into your network? And consequently, could it boost your ODI guidance or ODI's achievements in AMP 8? And the last question on leakage, as you spent some time on your presentation on leakage. I can imagine it's becoming more and more expensive to get additional 1% points of leakage reduction. And I would like to ask you whether you think Ofot is ready to pay more for reducing leakage by additional percentage points, meaning in AMP 8, in AMP 9, when it periodically should become much more challenging to reduce leakage, where they are happy to grant you higher allowances. to do so. Thank you very much.

Very good. Three very thoughtful questions. So, I mean, you can't really work out like a pound of ODI costs you X because it's very different per ODI. So each individual ODI is quite a different metric and it depends on the weather conditions that are happening that particular year because that makes it harder or easier and it depends on your start point on the targets. So, It's not as easy to kind of say in AMP7 it used to cost us X and AMP8 it cost us Y. That's not true. What we can say though is that if you look at AMP7 versus AMP8, we've got less measures to go after. That's better for us. We have 21 metrics now. We used to have 43 back in the day. Keeping 43 metrics green is harder than keeping 21 metrics green. That's one thing. The second thing is we have a much larger base budget. So when you look across the piece, you know, we're growing our RCV by 60%, aren't we, this time around? And it was about 11% last time around. So we do have more generic investment. And so what you can do is invest more in capital solutions. So rather than investing in OPEX-heavy solutions every year, you can actually fix the source of the problem. And so if you look at some of the big earners, like, for example, leakage or like, for example, spills, if you can fix that site permanently, you're going to earn rewards on that site every year for the next number of years. So it is a very different dynamic, this AMP versus last AMP, I would say, on ODIs. So that's one. On the efficiencies, so what we've said is that we're going to make the efficiencies, and then you should assume we're investing them as it currently stands. And whether we're investing them to land additional performance, like, for example, the EPA metrics are now more metrics, and that will require more investment to hit those. It might be that we're putting some of the metrics in to land four-star status. It might be that we're saving some money for the capital re-openers, and we might do that. Put some money aside because those re-openers are really good, so we might save some money on that, but that keeps the guidance on gearing 60% to 65% in shape. And it might be that you have a long, hot, dry summer, like this one, and you have to spend a bit more money on moving the water around and creating more water. So it's just good, prudent management to identify efficiencies early on. So you shouldn't currently assume more TOTEX than plus zero. We've said that at the time. But you should feel very confident in our ability, even in an inflation-heavy environment, to still deliver our TOTEX budgets. That's what we're currently saying. But we haven't been as clear as that, so I guess that's what we're saying is at least zero. And then on leakage, it's an interesting question. I'm not sure I'm in quite the same place. I think Ofwat does accept that leakage is more expensive to deliver, and that's why they've given us all the money for mainslay. So if you look at the money they have funded, they have funded half a billion pounds worth of mainslay investment. That's new. That's fair. And then I guess for us, it'd be interesting to talk about stuff we're doing on pressure management. So that is funded by ourselves, but it's just a better way to run the company?

Yes, I think we've got to innovate on both find and fix to keep the costs down. So from a fixed point of view, I've talked about Pegasus, so pressure control in valves across the network that we can automate, which reduce bursts and leakage. But we've gone really big in the last six months on Origin, which is a solution which we push into the pipes to seal the leaks, which means that we don't have to pay for expensive road closures or use our crews for two days when they can do a job in 20 minutes. So I think it's about innovation as well.

Very good. Thank you very much. So I think we have no further questions. I can't see any on the screen either. So in which case, I'm going to call it. So a massive thank you for anyone that dialed in for the half-year 720 Q&A. Much appreciated. And thank you once again for all the support, for the many questions, the guidance, the counsel over the years. And well done to the team for a very strong first half to the year. That's it from us.