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About BWHW
A Brief History
Bournemouth Water (established 1863) and West Hampshire Water (established 1893) were two former statutory water companies established by Act of Parliament.
The Bournemouth Company also supplied gas until Nationalisation of the Gas Industry in 1949.
As statutory companies listed on the London Stock Exchange, they had access to the market for funds but dividends were fixed. Most financing was by fixed dividend ordinary or preference shares and by debentures.
With the opportunities presented by privatisation of the former Water Authorities in 1989 the two companies came under a joint majority shareholding, through Biwater the British Multi National Water Engineering Group.
A common Board of Directors and Management Team was established in 1990, in preparation for amalgamation of the two companies under a Memorandum of Understanding with Ofwat the Industry’s Economic Regulator.
In preparation for this, the companies converted to Plc status from statutory companies in 1992. This enabled them to adopt a memorandum and articles of association under the Companies Acts, thereby allowing them to uncap dividends and to diversify outside the core water supply business.
The companies merged into a new Company through Schemes of Arrangement under the Water Industry Act 1991, on 1 July 1994 as Bournemouth & West Hampshire Water Plc. This new Company was not listed and the former companies de-listed in May 1994 as they no longer met the listing criteria of 25% of their equity being in “public” hands.
In March 1996, the Company converted £25,000,000 of ordinary share capital into £25,000,000 8.5% cumulative irredeemable preference shares, which were admitted to the Official List. These shares were placed with a variety of institutional investors. In December 2004, Ofwat, the Water Industry’s Economic Regulator set price limits using a stylised balance sheet. This made the Preference Shares inefficient from a financing perspective and the Company repaid them through a Court approved reduction in capital in April 2005. As a consequence the Company de-listed these shares. The Company refinanced its business using long term (2033) index linked wrapped bonds under the Royal Bank of Scotland’s Artesian programme. This refinancing structured the Company’s balance sheet at the level of gearing considered to be optimal by Ofwat.
On 1 April 2000 the Company became the principle component of a 50/50 joint venture (JV) partnership between Biwater and the Dutch multi-utility company, Nuon. The JV company “Cascal” developed investment opportunities in the $200 billion per year global market for private sector participation in the water and wastewater sectors.
In August 2005, Biwater and Nuon reached agreement on the sale of Nuon’s 50% interest in Cascal. The transaction was subject to approval from the relevant authorities. This sale was in line with Nuon’s strategy of concentrating on energy activities in the core countries of the
In July 2010 Cascal was acquired by Sembcorp Utilities, a wholly owned subsidiary of Sembcorp Industries, a leading energy, water and marine group listed on the main board of the Singapore Exchange.
The Company has an excellent record of quality, cost control and efficiency and supplying very good levels of service to customers at well below national average prices.
Roger Harrington
Managing Director
Company background
