In an article published in The Telegraph, Cox he promised to “lift the veil” on practices employed by unnamed unlisted water companies that are not within the interests of the public and vowed to take a hard line on future regulation particularly with water companies that use offshore holdings to offset UK tax, stating that some unlisted companies “use shareholder loans” to avoid taxation”.
However, Cox stated that these practices may be “legal and common” in private equity backed companies, but that these may still be “questionable” in the water industry.
Writing in The Telegraph, he suggested that Ofwat must help maintain trust in the water industry as it is something the regulator owed to “government and customers”.
Taking the moral temperature of the water industry Cox pointed out that customers have seen bills rise by 13.5pc since 2010/11 and accused some companies of making “exceptional returns” due to lower costs of corporate debt than Ofwat encountered when it last set prices in 2009 and high RPI inflation.
He said he may intervene to make sure that customers benefit from profit gains from water companies.
Cox has experience of running major water companies as head of Yorkshire Water and of Anglian Water.