As the UK prepares for a significant wave of energy and water investment, a narrower question sits underneath it: if the regulated cost of equity is derived from listed comparators, what happens when only 5 of the 39 regulated electricity, gas and water entities in the UK are still listed on the domestic market? In our September roundtable we examined how stock market movements reach the regulatory cost of equity, and whether listing itself changes how a utility is financed. We looked at...

CAPM has been the workhorse model for cost of equity across regulated utilities but is reaching its limits.

Our July 2026 roundtable focussed on geopolitical risk in regulated infrastructure: What impact does foreign equipment and capital have on UK infrastructure finance and regulation? Drawing on Vallorii’s Cost of Capital Lab, we explored how geopolitics enters infrastructure assets: imported equipment behind capital and maintenance programmes, and the foreign capital financing the sector. The discussion suggested that affordability, security, and the cost of capital, are closely interlinked...

Our May 2026 roundtable turned to financial resilience in regulated infrastructure, asking a question that has moved to the centre of the UK infrastructure debate: How can the system balance the financial resilience that protects utilities against shocks with the affordability pressures that resilience-restoring measures place on consumers? Drawing on Vallorii's Price of Risk model (VAPRI), we explored how the erosion of financial headroom has changed the nature of resilience itself—shifting...

In regulated infrastructure, value is not a fixed concept. The value of an infrastructure asset depends on how it is measured and which accounting basis drives returns. Different accounting frameworks produce markedly different views of the same asset base. Regulatory asset values (RAV), historical cost accounts, and current cost accounts (modern equivalent asset value, MEAV, or replacement cost), each serve distinct purposes. But when the differences between these measures changes,...

Infrastructure debates tend to focus on what should be built next. Yet a more fundamental question sits beneath them: how quickly should we pay for what has already been built? That question goes to the heart of depreciation. As discussions at the March roundtable underscored, it is emerging as a central lever in infrastructure economics and regulation. How does intergenerational fairness impact affordability? Depreciation directly shapes returns, bill trajectories, and risk allocation over...