Company highlights

We have delivered another strong financial performance this year. Cash generated from operations was more than £4.3 billion, while adjusted operating profit and adjusted earnings per share were higher by 7% and 14% respectively.

  • Revenue * £13,988m 2008/09: £15,624m (10%)
  • Cash generated from operations * £4,372m 2008/09: £3,564m (23%)
  • Adjusted operating profit *† £3,121m 2008/09: £2,915m (7%)
  • Operating profit * £3,293m 2008/09: £2,623m (26%)
  • Adjusted earnings per share *† 57.4p 2008/09: 50.2p (14%) (i)
  • Earnings per share * 56.1p 2008/09: 36.9p (52%) (i)
  • Capital expenditure £3,252m 2008/09: £3,242m (0.3%)
  • Ordinary dividends 38.49p 2008/09: 35.64p (8%)
  • Return on equity †
    (3 year average)     11.3% 2008/09: 10.8%
  • Interest cover 3.9x 2008/09: 3.1x
  • *
    for continuing operations
    †
    excludes the impact of exceptional items, remeasurements and stranded cost recoveries. See measurement of financial performance and use of adjusted profit measures for more information about these adjusted profit measures
    (i)
    Comparative earnings per share data has been restated for the impact of the scrip dividend issues.
    Our financial results are reported in sterling. The average exchange rate (see exchange rates) was $1.58 to £1 in 2009/10 compared with the average rate of $1.54 to £1 in 2008/09.
    Except as otherwise noted, the figures in this Report are stated in sterling or US dollars and all references to dollars or $ are to the US currency.

Safety is critical both to business performance and to defining the culture of our Company for our employees. 2009/10 saw a 40% reduction in lost time injury frequency rate to 0.15 compared with 0.25 in 2008/09.
Read more about safety

We continue to make progress in the representation of women and ethnic minorities in our workforce, increasing both this year. We are also creating targeted solutions to help employees maximise their performance.
Read more about inclusion and diversity and talent

We are committed to our customers and to providing outstanding customer service. Improvements made during this year include, implementation of a web based outage communication tool and energy efficiency campaigns.
Read more about customers and customer service

We continue to believe that our 45% by 2020 and 80% by 2050 greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets (against our 1990 baseline) are industry leading within the UK and US.
Read more about climate change

Our future organic growth is dependent on the delivery of our capital investment programme. In 2009/10, we invested £3.3 billion and our planned investment for 2010/11 is £3.9 billion.
Read more about capital investment

In line with our objective to deliver strong, sustainable regulatory and long-term contracts with good returns, we have made significant progress in filing US rate cases.
Read more about Regulatory environment and Energy policy, regulatory and other developments

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