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Severn Trent PLC on Wednesday reported increases in revenue and profit despite upward pressure on power and chemical costs as non-household consumption returned to pre-pandemic levels.
The Coventry-based water company reported pretax profit of £506.2 million in the year ended March 31, up 7.5% against the £470.7 million achieved the prior year.
Turnover climbed 6.4% to £1.94 billion from £1.83 billion as non-household consumption returned to pre-pandemic levels and household consumption lowered. Severn Trent added that this figure was at the top of its expected range.
The company's return on regulatory equity stood at 8.7% in the year, outperforming the base return by 480 basis points. Severn Trent explained that this was driven by a strong performance across the majority of its measures, with 88% meeting or exceeding regulatory targets.
The FTSE 100 firm proposed a final dividend of 61.3 pence per share, up from 60.95p the previous year. This gave a total payout of 102.14p and represented a 0.6% increase against the 101.58p paid a year prior.
Looking forward, Severn Trent said it expects turnover for the current financial year to be between £1.97 billion and £2.02 billion. This would result in between 1.4% to 3.9% turnover growth year-on-year if achieved.
Chief Executive Liv Garfield said: ‘Our drive to deliver sustainable benefits for all stakeholders is embedded in our culture and I am delighted to see this reflected in another set of strong results, with in-year RoRE of 8.7%, more than double the base return, and a forecast for AMP7 nominal RCV growth of 28.6%.’
Shares in Severn Trent were down 1.0% at 3,117.00 pence on Wednesday morning in London.
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