8 Discontinued operations
During the prior year, in line with its declared strategy of concentrating on its core skills of managing water, wastewater, electricity and gas networks, the group completed the disposal of United Utilities Electricity (UUE) to North West Electricity Networks Limited on 19 December 2007 for a total enterprise value of £1,782 million.
The group continues to look for opportunities to apply its core skills in its non-regulated business where it identifies opportunities to generate additional shareholder value with little impact on the risk profile of the group. In line with this strategy, the group sold its industrial liquid waste and facilities management operations and made its final exit from the telecoms sector during the prior year. On 26 October 2007, the group sold its industrial liquid waste operations to Group Tradebe for consideration of £3.7 million and on 22 February 2008, the group completed the sale of its facilities management operations to Europa Facility Holdings Limited for consideration of £9.0 million.
The group sold its 22.63 per cent stake in THUS Group plc on 19 June 2007 for consideration of £75.8 million, which completed United Utilities’ exit from the telecoms sector. The sale is treated as an adjustment to consideration arising on the disposal of Your Communications and, as such, both the loss on disposal and the group’s share of THUS’ results prior to the disposal are disclosed within discontinued operations in 2008.
The results of UUE, the group’s industrial liquid waste and facilities management operations and its share of results from its associate have been disclosed, along with the profit/(loss) on disposal, as discontinued operations in the group’s financial statements in 2008. The detailed trading results and the profit/(loss) on disposal of each discontinued operation are shown below. Cashflows in relation to discontinued operations are separately disclosed in the group’s cashflow statement in 2008.
Revenue from the discontinued operations was derived principally from customers located in the United Kingdom, the related net assets were also primarily located in the United Kingdom.
There is no tax charged on the profits resulting from the disposal of the discontinued operations during the year ended 31 March 2008 as these were tax exempt sales of shares.
The net assets/(liabilities) at each date of disposal were as follows:
