Business Weekly - Cambridge, UK

AWG put Anglian Water International up for sale last year so it could concentrate on lucrative PFI and infrastructure management contracts in the UK.

Tony Eckford, who has been an executive director of AWI since 1996 and is former MD of Thames Water International, is working on a buy-out of the company’s Czech assets, which are highly profitable.

Anglian believes that the deal would then make it easier to sell the remainder of the business.

It is expected that the MBO will raise around £100m – way short of the £250m figure AWG originally had in mind.

Anglian Water International had turnover of £213m and £15m profits in the latest accounts and employs around 3,000 staff. It has interests in Chile, the Czech Republic, China, Ireland and Thailand.

The parent group has spent most of 2003 battling a hostile takeover from Bream, a consortium backed by German bank WestLB. The bid failed when Bream failed to hit a strict deadline applied by competition authorities.

AWG has made a bonus issue of 57,494,043,000 redeemable shares of 0.1 penny each and announced its offer to redeem all of its issued redeemable shares. 

These have been issued to the holders of AWG ordinary shares on the register at close of business on June 13.

The redemption offer will last for a redemption period of 29 days which will start on August 8 and close on September 5.