| NEW YORK (BUSINESS WIRE) - The Wall Street Transcript has
published an in-depth interview with Donald J. Correll of United Water Resources, in which
he talks at length about his company's future. He says, "As I stated last year,
there's a trend toward further public/private partnerships, or contract operations -- some
form of outsourcing of municipal water and wastewater services -- and probably at a pace
that's going to continue to accelerate. And the more successes large- and medium-sized
municipalities have in outsourcing their operations, the greater the acceleration will
be."
He explains, "I think there will continue to be a trend toward some consolidation
of regulated water utilities some mergers and acquisitions. But I firmly believe that the
trend will clearly provide more growth opportunities in the non-regulated side of our
business."
He states, "We've had a goal for the last five years to double the population we
serve every five years. Five years ago, United Water was a regional water utility
providing regulated service to about 1 million people. We doubled that number in 1994 when
we merged General Waterworks into United Water. And we doubled that number again in 1997
when we expanded our ownership in a contract operator to 50%."
Looking forward, he states, "With new contracts signed so far (in 1998), -- in
Atlanta, Milwaukee, Gary and San Antonio -- we are up to about 7.5 million people, with
almost two-thirds of them in the non-regulated side. Based on this record, you could say
that we should be able to double the number again in the next five years. That would
increase the population we serve to about 15 million people." |