The water company, which is currently hammering out a deal with Ofwat for its 2015-2020 spending plans, said profits for the first half of 2014-15 were on course to be similar to the same period last year.
United Utilities, which has a solid A3 credit rating, said it was confident of meeting its regulatory outperformance targets for the 2010-15 regulatory period. It highlighted “significant improvements” in customer service.
Angelos Anastasiou, utilities analyst at Whitman Howard, said the trading update “is pretty much as we expected”.
He added that interest would remain focused on UU’s negotiations with Ofwat, which has challenged hundreds of millions of pounds of the water company’s planned expenditure. The regulator’s final determination will be announced in December. United Utilities will announce its half year results on 26 November 2014.