By Denis Sheehan, Publisher, H&C News: More rising energy costs for business from sale of UK gas pipeline infrastructure.
National Grid very quietly announced last Sunday that it had sold 60% of the UK’s gas pipeline infrastructure, the pipeline that feeds energy into the UK’s homes and businesses, for £4 billion. The buyers were Australia’s Macquarie Asset Management and Canada’s British Columbia Investment Management Corporation.
The deal will see National Grid receive £2.2 billion in cash, and £2 billion debt financing.
Macquarie owned Thames Water for more than a decade, when it sold the company in 2016 it was left saddled with debt. During the bank’s ownership of Thames Water, prices soared while shareholders in the Australian business earned billions in dividends and paid almost zero corporation tax.
It seems almost unbelievable that at a time when energy self sufficiency is so evidently crucial to the UK economy more of the family silver is yet again being sold off.
Also, given the nonchalance shown by the Chancellor to hospitality businesses in his recent Spring Statement, don’t hold out any hope that if the new foreign owners of the UK’s gas pipeline infrastructure, treat it as they did Thames Water and put up prices, he will come to the rescue.
