Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news
- UK water companies offer apology and £10bn investment for sewage spills
In the energy sector, National Grid has reported a jump in annual profits to almost £4.6bn.
The surge in earnings comes amid growing concern that it is not connecting renewable energy projects fast enough to meet the UK’s climate targets, my colleague Jillian Ambrose reports.
“there has never been a more exciting time to be at the heart of the energy industry”.
“The business has faced pressure from alternative network providers, although on the retail side customer numbers have remained stable.
On the Openreach side of the business BT had a net loss of 68,000 connections, a reversal of a recent trend of slowing losses. This will be a concern and a figure to watch going forward.
“Crucially, BT has been able to maintain a competitive position in the market due to prices being inflation linked. Given competitors do the same there is no real threat of customer churn there and it should be supportive for earnings.
Finally, as interest rates have risen at an extraordinary pace, the debt burden facing alternative providers will be good news for BT. While it is a business in transformation, it has a good mix of short and long-term opportunities to take advantage of.”
Continue reading…
