We're committed to maintaining high standards of corporate governance and leadership, and we recognise the importance of demonstrating to customers, shareholders, investors, regulators and other stakeholders how this is achieved.
Our Board promotes transparency, accountability, ethical conduct and commitment to high standards of performance in delivering services to customers and to the protection of the environment.
Our Corporate Governance Code is there to ensure that we continuously review and enhance our corporate governance framework to achieve best practice. It also ensures that we demonstrate a transparent approach to all governance matters.
The diagram below shows how our corporate governance framework works in practice.
Nomination Committee
Chair: Chris Train (Independent Non-Executive Director)
Other Members: John Barnes (Independent Non-Executive Director), Célia Pronto (Independent Non-Executive Director), Mark McArdle (Non-Executive Director – Shareholder Nominated), Anne-Noëlle Le Gal (Non-Executive Director – Shareholder Nominated)
Remuneration Committee
Chair: Célia Pronto (Independent Non-Executive Director)
Other members: Chris Train (Independent Non-Executive Director), John Barnes (Independent Non-Executive Director), Mark McArdle (Non-Executive Director – Shareholder Nominated), Anne-Noëlle Le Gal (Non-Executive Director – Shareholder Nominated)
Audit and Risk Committee
Chair: Lisa Clement (Independent Non-Executive Director)
Other members: John Barnes (Independent Non-Executive Director), Célia Pronto (Independent Non-Executive Director), Mark McArdle (Non-Executive Director – Shareholder Nominated), Anne-Noëlle Le Gal (Non-Executive Director – Shareholder Nominated)
Responsible Business Committee
Chair: Mark McArdle (Non-Executive Director – Shareholder Nominated)
Other members: John Barnes (Independent Non-Executive Director), David Hinton (Executive Director), Anne-Noëlle Le Gal (Non-Executive Director – Shareholder Nominated)
Find out more
Asset management policy(opens in a new tab)
South East Water UK tax policy(opens in a new tab)
South East Water Corporate Governance Code(opens in a new tab)
Our dividend policy(opens in a new tab)
The terms of reference of our nomination committee(opens in a new tab)
The terms of reference of our remuneration committee(opens in a new tab)
The terms of reference of our audit and risk committee(opens in a new tab)
Our diversity policy(opens in a new tab)
Matters reserved for the board(opens in a new tab)
The terms of reference of our responsible business committee(opens in a new tab)
Ownership
The ultimate owners of HDF (UK) Holdings Ltd are Utilities of Australia Pty Ltd as Trustee for the Utilities Trust of Australia, NatWest Pension Trustee Limited as trustee for the NatWest Group Pension Fund (Main Fund Section) and three entities of the Desjardins cooperative financial group based in Quebec (Régime de rentes du Mouvement Desjardins, Desjardins Financial Security Life Assurance Company and Certas Home and Auto Insurance Company).
Roles of group companies
- South East Water is the main operating company
- South East Water (Finance) is the company that holds most of the debt raised by the group. It is registered in the Cayman Islands for historic company law reasons but it is resident in the UK for tax purposes
- South East Water (Holdings) role is to ring-fence the operating company beneath it from any financial difficulties in the companies higher up the ownership chain
- Hastings Luxembourg Water S.a.r.l. is registered in Luxembourg and borrows money from banks and shareholders and passes on the proceeds to companies within the group structure