Castle takes more material with eye on UK business kings

Castle Water has identified London's national corporate HQs of pan-UK business as "an obvious line of attack" in its strategy following its acquisition of the business customers of Thames Water.

With its January acquisition of Portsmouth Water's 16,500 business customers followed by Thames' 250,000 non-domestic supply base, Castle has expanded from a a Scotland-based water retailer with 5,000 customers to serving 270,000 businesses at sites north of the Border and in the south of England.

Speaking to THE WATER REPORT business development developer Richard Moore said the Thames move could create opportunities to reach out to regional premises of London headquartered businesses.

Having landed already its Portsmouth catch, Castle will take on billing, cash collection and associated services for its newest business customers in discreet parts starting in the autumn. It will legally take on Thames' business retail operation when the competitive market opens in April 2017.

Thames outgoing chief executive Martin Baggs said the company will continue its household retail operations and flagged its heavy investment in a new customer relationship and billing system for that business.

Thames said the move will enable it to “focus all our energy on delivering excellent operational water and wastewater services to all our customers and retail services to household customers, who continue to see improvements in the service we deliver”.

See in the July/ August edition of THE WATER REPORT:

interviews with

Martin Baggs - reflects on time at Thames

Richard Moore on Castle Water's ambitions

and

MOSL chief Ben Jeffs on progress in retail market preparations