Pennon slashes dividend and launches £550m cash call ‘to drive improved outcomes for customers and communities’

• Burnham, take note: water shareholders have their uses

The owner of embattled South West Water has slashed its dividend and launched a cash call to investors as it attempts to fund infrastructure investment, days after it was hit by a record £7.9m fine for hundreds of sewage spills.

London-listed Pennon said on Wednesday it would tap investors for £550m, as part of a £1bn investment “to drive improved outcomes for customers and communities”.

Odds are good the CMA would approve of a supermarket merger. But does Sainsbury’s need Morrisons?

Would competition regulators really smile upon a combination of Sainsbury’s and Morrisons? One must assume the two companies believed the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) would give a thumbs up if asked, otherwise they would not have initiated their now-aborted merger talks.

It’s easy to list the arguments the duo could make. First, the combined market share of Sainsbury’s (15.2%, on the latest numbers from Worldpanel analysts) and Morrisons (8.4%) would still be less than that of mighty Tesco (27.8%). It would not be a case of leap-frogging the market leader, which was Sainsbury’s big idea back in 2018 when Asda was in its sights.