Ofwat is tightening up its guidance on dividend payments – the water sector regulator has told the water companies they should consider withholding or restricting dividends where there are significant service failures to be addressed or there is a risk of regulatory fines, penalties or a need to take remedial actions.

Pennon Group, owner of South West Water, Bournemouth Water and Bristol Water, has raised its final dividend in line with its dividend policy– despite falling from a profit of £127.7 million in 2021/22 to a pretax loss of £8.5 million in 2022/23 in “an extraordinary year” which has tested its operational resilience.

A new report shows how global companies are taking action to stem the global water crisis and stand ready to reap major financial rewards as a result.

Ofwat has today announced new powers that will enable it to stop the payment of dividends if they would risk the company’s financial resilience, and take enforcement action against water companies that don’t link dividend payments to performance.

Investor confidence that Ofwat is independent of Government has fallen during the past year - according to the results of the water sector regulator’s annual investor survey, perceptions of Ofwat's independence saw the most significant fall with only 48% agreeing compared with 55% in 2021.

South West Water’s parent company, Pennon Group, has announced it will be sharing £20 million with its household customers for the second time following the launch of the second issuance of WaterShare+ last week. 

The Guardian newspaper has published a detailed analysis of the water companies in England which is calling into question the fairness of England’s privatised water model and referring to England’s water as “the world’s piggy bank.”

Members of the House of Lords Industry and Regulators Committee have asked Environment Agency bosses whether the water companies in England have made sufficient investment over the last decade, whether they should have been doing more over the last ten years and whether the Agency itself had lacked the necessary resources for its monItoring activities.

Aileen Armstrong, Senior Director, Company Performance and Price Controls at Ofwat, is warning that current concerns and headlines in the media about the UK water sector are not going to go away without real change and that the pressure is only going to intensify over the coming months.

Anglian Water has become the first UK company to issue a corporate green bond in the Canadian ‘maple’ bond market.