Water firm set to top up Scots customers

A Perthshire-based businessfocused water retailer is looking to boost its customer base and is mulling further acquisitions after a string of deals.

Castle Water describes itself as the leading independent water retailer in the UK, and has about 350 staff. It says its approach has seen customers save at least £12 million to date.

Chief executive John Reynolds – who earlier this year scooped the EY Entrepreneur of the Year Scotland Rising Star award – told The Scotsman that adding to its 370,000-strong customers is very much on the horizon. “I certainly can’t see any reason why we couldn’t take customer numbers up by 50 per cent over the next 18 months or so.”

Its customers include businesses, charities and public bodies in England and Scotland. It has transferred large groups of public sector customers, including local authorities and NHS Trusts.

The firm has in the last year or so made three acquisitions including Thames Water in London, and in June last year said it was acquiring Ayrbased Cobalt Water, an independent retailer of water to business customers.

Reynolds said. “We saw the opportunity to acquire Cobalt as one that would give us a firm related business but with its ownoperationalmanagement that could give us continued strong growth and customer service in Scotland.”

And he said the firm continues to look at acquiring other customer bases. “We think there are other retailers that don’t have the same breadth of systems and service provision that we do where we can add value to their customers.” 0 Castle Water’s chief executive John Reynolds