Castle Water will continue to evaluate large acquisition opportunities in both Scotland and England, following its purchase of fellow independent water retailer Cobalt Water.
The deal with Cobalt gives Castle the ability to “accelerate its growth in Scotland”, the company’s chief executive John Reynolds told Utility Week.
Cobalt is currently the retailer for about 7,600 supply points, and most of its customers are multi-site. Castle currently has about 11,500 supply points in Scotland.
Following the acquisition, Cobalt will essentially become “Castle Water Scotland”. Its offices will remain open and it will grow, Reynolds said.
“We’ve known Cobalt for quite a while, and we think that they are very capable,” he added. “I think they saw the sense in being part of a larger group that wants to stay with that culture of an independent retailer.
“We wanted to expand our capability within Scotland further, and it is quite interesting because it’s a fit where there are some significant strategic advantages but no redundancies.”
Castle Water’s first venture into the English non-household retail market was when it bought the business customer-base of the exiting Portsmouth Water at the beginning of 2016.
Then, in July, it bought Thames Water’s business customers, causing its previously 30,000-strong customer base to nonuple to approximately 280,000. At the time, the company’s business development director Richard Moore said the deal was “too large to be ignored”.