mua Group is a joint venture between international engineering and construction company, Murphy, and SGN, one of the largest gas distribution companies in the UK¹. mua invests in long-life utility assets to connect homes and businesses to essential utility infrastructure and deliver energy and multi-utility services through its networks. 

Now well-established in the electricity and gas sectors, mua is a major Independent Distribution Network Operator (IDNO) and Independent Gas Transporter (IGT) with more than 136,000 live connections, working with a variety of customers, including housebuilders, land developers, Independent Connections Providers (ICPs) and Utility Infrastructure Providers (UIPs). Following substantial growth over the past five years, mua has acquired an extensive orderbook of more than 415,000 contracted residential, industrial and commercial gas and electricity connections nationwide. Last year, mua also expanded into the water sector, providing water and wastewater infrastructure to new developments as an Ofwat-regulated NAV company.

Looking for additional funding to support the company’s rapid growth, mua Group approached potential lenders, including NatWest.

Following detailed discussions about mua’s growth and investment strategy, we agreed to participate as a lender in a three-bank consortium, providing a total of £100 million.

mua will use this debt facility to acquire further electricity, gas and water infrastructure assets, as well as enhance its Extra High Voltage (EHV) and High Voltage (HV) connection offering, where the company provide solutions for grid connections to data centres, battery energy storage systems (BESS), large industrial and commercial projects, and electric vehicle charging infrastructure.

mua Group Managing Director, Gregory Addison-Smyth, commented: “Securing this £100 million debt facility marks another strategic milestone for us at mua.  Our rapid and sustainable growth over recent years has established us as one of Britain’s leading independent multi-utility network operators. This additional funding creates a fantastic platform to fuel our future growth across our established utility markets, such as BESS, data centres and EV charging, and we welcome the support of NatWest, our new funding partner.”

mua Group Asset Investment Director, Kristian Marsden, added: “This financing is a testament to the outstanding achievements of the mua team and underscores the success we have attained. It also reflects the trust and continued support of our clients, who rely on us to deliver exceptional service. With this additional funding, we look forward to refining our customer experience with new and innovative technological solutions to make the end-to-end asset adoption process even more seamless.”

Ramin Mathieson, Structured Finance at NatWest, said: “We’re delighted to provide mua Group with debt funding to support the growth of their business as they acquire more electric, gas and water infrastructure assets across the UK. The Group’s investment into UK Infrastructure will also see them grow their Extra High Voltage and High Voltage connection offering, providing solutions for grid connections to battery energy storage systems (BESS), electric vehicle charging infrastructure, data centres and larger industrial and commercial projects. We are committed to play an active role in the UK’s transition to a low carbon economy, and we are therefore delighted to support mua. This deal is another example of delivering on our commitment to help building a greener economy by providing £100 billion Climate and Sustainable Funding and Financing to our customers by the end of 2025.”

1: Source