LONDON (ShareCast) - (Sharecast News) - United Utilities' annual profit rose as the water company's revenue increased but its results were hit by the cost of safeguarding supplies during the scorching summer of 2018.
Underlying operating profit for the year to the end of March rose to £684.8m from £645.1m as revenue increased to £1.82bn from £1.74bn.

Pre-tax profit rose by just £1m to £436.2m as the FTSE 100 company spent £36m to deal with the effects of the summer of 2018 - the joint hottest on record. In tota, United Utilities said it will spend almost £80m extra to safeguard continuity of supplies, including £66m laid out last year.

It increased its final dividend to 27.52p a share taking the annual payout to 41.28p - up 3.9% on a year earlier.

The company said it was confident about outperforming its expenditure allowance for 2015-2020 by £100m through efficiency measures. It will invest an extra £100m in its operations to take the figure for the current asset management period to £350m.

Chief executive Steve Mogford said: "We are well placed for the remainder of the current regulatory period and beyond as we maintain our focus on providing great service to customers and creating long-term value for all of our stakeholders.

"We are increasing our additional investment by another £100m, to total £350m, to accelerate the delivery of further performance improvements and facilitate a flying start to the next regulatory period."

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