Utility Week

UTILITY WEEK | 16TH - 22ND FEBRUARY 2018 | 7 Interview W ave chief executive Lucy Darch was hired to lead the non-domestic water retailer through market opening and beyond. She wants the company – currently the third-largest in the competitive English water market with an 18 per cent share of supply points – to "act like a new entrant", and she has a few ideas about how to make that happen. There is no pretention surrounding our meeting at Wave's Durham offices. Upon arrival, Darch shows Utility Week around the unostentatious building. The only way you'd know it belonged to the company is by the hand- made sign in the reception area, which still reads: NWG Business. "We didn't want to spend money on a fancy sign when we knew we would be rebranding soon aer moving in," she says, referencing the brand evolution following a joint venture between NWG Business and Anglian Water Business. The whole place has a decidedly informal feel. The room names are inspired by Harry Potter – The Ministry of Magic for the boardroom, and the Room of Require- ment for a previously empty wing. But don't let the cottage industry feel fool you. Wave is a force to be reckoned with in the new water retail market. The joint venture with Anglian Water Business, announced last year and due to complete this spring, transformed NWG Business in more than name. Its employee base ballooned from around 50 to around 250. And the emerging business, Wave, has more than a quar- ter of a million customers and a combined turnover of more than £500 million. Boasting around 419,000 supply points, Wave is one of the biggest players in a market officially made up of 25 retailers. Darch tells Utility Week scale was the main reason for the joint venture. However, she adds, there were specific reasons NWGB chose Anglian, which had a "longer track record in the market", having entered the Scottish market in 2008. "We are very complemen- tary businesses. Anglian has a lot of water retail exper- tise around service and billing in a newly deregulated market. Whereas NWGB has more of a focus on the tech side – building a web and telephony capability that was integrated. "Between Anglian and NWGB it felt like we had everything. We didn't have much duplication because NWGB was so new. There were lots of areas where we didn't have the experience and expertise that they had in Anglian." However, Darch maintains that she wants Wave to look like a new entrant, both in terms of its culture and the way it grows – organically. The company may have its associate portfolios, but it is now actively acquiring business. "Our total SPID [supply point] count is 422,622, which means we are net growing in the English market – we are around 810 SPIDs up," she tells Utility Week. Her pride is not without merit, as other big incumbent play- ers struggle to retain supply points. Like many water retail bosses, Darch is a deregula- tion pro, having been there at the birth of the gas and electricity markets in the 1990s. She was approached by Northumbrian Water chief executive Heidi Mottram –

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