El Sewedy leads way for Egypt
For decades, one Egyptian company slowly built up its brand and bucked the odds, exporting its products across the world and growing while contemporaries languished. Now El Sewedy Electrometer, a…
Building blocks to cut output costs
When Audi’s new A3 compact rolled off a production line in southern Germany last year, it became the first of as many as 40 new models that will be built…
Adani bullish on India energy prospects
India is close to striking a political deal to end a major component of a long-running crisis over coal imports that has crippled the country’s power sector and undermined overall…
Gearing and gaming of water must stop
This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. When water floated (as the ads cringingly put it 20 years ago) the monopolies were to be controlled by a combination of…
Week in review, May 18
©Bloomberg Tony Hayward’s job at Glencore Xstrata is to supervise the search for a successor to Sir John Bond A round up of some of the week’s most significant corporate…
US energy revolution gathers pace
The growing role of the US in world energy markets was underlined on Friday as the Obama administration approved wider exports of liquefied natural gas and international companies committed billions…
China’s State Grid in fresh Australia deal
©AFP China’s State Grid, the world’s largest utility group by assets, has made a second foray into the Australian energy market with the acquisition of stakes in two power transmission…
National Grid says dividends safeguarded
©Alamy National Grid insisted it was well set to meet its target of delivering inflation-proofed dividend payments in the coming years after striking long-term deals with UK and US regulators.…
US states look to cut greenhouse gases
A growing number of American states are looking at ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the absence of federal climate change legislation, with a northeastern scheme for trading carbon…
National Grid: reassuringly predictable
The trouble with being a heavily regulated utility – and they don’t come more heavily regulated than power transmission – is the number of mouths to be fed. Regulators want…
‘Abenomics’ yet to convince business
The architects of Japan’s assault on the yen could be forgiven for thinking Osamu Suzuki, the grand old man of the country’s automobile industry, a tad ungrateful. At an earnings…
Ofwat chief in unexpected exit
Regina Finn, chief executive of water regulator Ofwat, is to unexpectedly step aside in the wake of a revolt by water companies over the handling of licence changes. The decision…
US utilities’ outperformance fades away
The record rally for US stocks that kicked off the year was driven by a historic outperformance from companies in the utilities sector, Wall Street’s hallmark defensive equity market bet.…
Lombard: Irresistible tide for overseas control
A bid approach for utility Severn Trent has been flushed out by a leak. Anyone with a taste for puns is laughing like a drain. The mouths of investors are…
Severn Trent: in the works
That’s funny. One week, a Canadian pension fund is arguing that the climate is not right for investing in UK infrastructure. Next, who should turn up with an acquisitive eye…