National Grid Property
National Grid PLC
18 January 2008
18 January 2008
National Grid plc
National Grid Property
To be retained
National Grid plc ('National Grid') has decided, after conducting a market
testing exercise, to retain its UK property business, National Grid Property
(NGP).
National Grid Chief Executive, Steve Holliday, said 'As the process has gone
forward, the property and credit markets have deteriorated, and the bids we
received do not match the value we are confident that we can extract from the
business. Thus we have had no hesitation in deciding to retain the business and
look forward to continuing with our highly successful track record in
remediating and selling on our attractive portfolio of brownfield sites.'
Contacts
Investors
David Rees +44 (0)20 7004 3170 +44 (0)7901 511322 (m)
George Laskaris +1 718 403 2526 +1 917 375 0989 (m)
Richard Smith +44 (0)20 7004 3172 +44 (0)7747 006321 (m)
James Waite +44 (0)20 7004 3171 +44 (0)7977 440902 (m)
Media
Clive Hawkins +44 (0)20 7004 3147 +44 (0)7836 357173 (m)
Brunswick
Tim Williamson +44 (0)20 7396 5350 +44 (0)7974 982350 (m)
Additional information
National Grid Property (NGP) employs 80 people and is responsible for managing a
portfolio of properties across the Great Britain and for the management,
clean-up and disposal of properties largely comprising former gas works sites.
NGP's operating profit for 2006/07 was £86m.
Cautionary statement
This announcement contains certain statements that are neither reported
financial results nor other historical information. These statements are
forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities
Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934,
as amended. These statements include information with respect to National Grid's
financial condition, National Grid's results of operations and businesses,
strategy, plans and objectives. Words such as 'anticipates', 'expects',
'intends', 'plans', 'believes', 'seeks', 'estimates', 'may', 'will', 'continue',
'project' and similar expressions, as well as statements in the future tense,
identify forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are not
guarantees of National Grid's future performance and are subject to assumptions,
risks and uncertainties that could cause actual future results to differ
materially from those expressed in or implied by the forward-looking statements.
Many of these assumptions, risks and uncertainties relate to factors that are
beyond National Grid's ability to control or estimate precisely, such as delays
in obtaining, or adverse conditions contained in, regulatory approvals and
contractual consents, including those required to complete the proposed
acquisition of KeySpan when or as planned, unseasonable weather affecting the
demand for electricity and gas, competition and industry restructuring, changes
in economic conditions, currency fluctuations, changes in interest and tax
rates, changes in energy market prices, changes in historical weather patterns,
changes in laws, regulations or regulatory policies, developments in legal or
public policy doctrines, the impact of changes to accounting standards and
technological developments. Other factors that could cause actual results to
differ materially from those described in this announcement include the ability
to integrate the businesses relating to announced acquisitions with our existing
business and realise the expected synergies from such integration, the
availability of new acquisition opportunities and the timing and success of
future acquisition opportunities, the impact of the sales of businesses by
National Grid, the failure for any reason to achieve reductions in costs or to
achieve operational efficiencies, the failure to retain key management, the
behaviour of UK electricity market participants on system balancing, the timing
of amendments in prices to shippers in the UK gas market, the performance of
National Grid's pension schemes and the regulatory treatment of pension costs,
and any adverse consequences arising from outages on or otherwise affecting
energy networks, including gas pipelines, owned or operated by National Grid.
For a more detailed description of some of these assumptions, risks and
uncertainties, together with any other risk factors, please see National Grid's
filings with and submissions to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (the
'SEC') (and in particular the 'Risk Factors' and 'Operating and Financial
Review' sections in its most recent Annual Report on Form 20-F and the 'Risk
Factors' section in its Registration Statement on Form F-3 filed with the SEC on
28 June 2006). Except as may be required by law or regulation, National Grid
undertakes no obligation to update any of its forward-looking statements. The
effects of these factors are difficult to predict. New factors emerge from time
to time and National Grid cannot assess the potential impact of any such factor
on its activities or the extent to which any factor, or combination of factors,
may cause results to differ materially from those contained in any
forward-looking statement.
This information is provided by RNS
The company news service from the London Stock Exchange