Another water company has said it needs urgent funding just a day ahead of regulator Ofwat’s draft determinations for the sector for the next five years.
South East Water, which serves 2.3 million people in the Home Counties, said it is “in discussions with lenders and shareholders regarding additional liquidity”.
In a statement, the company said it “expects” to raise the extra funding, but has not yet agreed to a deal.
“If it is not possible to raise the additional liquidity, the group and therefore the company would not have sufficient liquidity for the going concern period,” it said in a results statement on Wednesday.
South East Water is already on regulator Ofwat’s watch list for financially at-risk companies, alongside Thames Water and other regional monopolies.
Ofwat will announce its initial decisions tomorrow on the water companies’ five-year spending plans and bill increases from next year until 2030.
Final determinations will be made at the end of the year.
All of the utilities have requested hefty price increases to cover the infrastructure upgrades designed to ease sewage spills and repair ageing sewers.
South East Water itself has budgeted £1.9 billion of spending to maintain and update its infrastructure which will be partly funded by hiking customer bills by 22%.
The utility posted a loss of £36 million for the year to March 31, down from £74 million, on revenues up 9% to £281 million.
South East Water is also one of several utilities facing fines from Ofwat after water supplies were being disrupted for a week.
In its results statement, the company said that talks with Ofwat were ongoing and it would “like to apologise to customers who experienced any supply interruptions.”