United Utilities, Lancashire’s water supplier, has been revealed as the North West’s most profitable business.
The firm was ranked number one in Insider Media’s Profit 50 list with pre-tax profits of £341.6m.
United Utilities, based in Warrington, recorded profits more than double the £155m figure posted by engineering giant Amec Foster Wheeler, which was second on the list.
Liverpool-based discount retailers B&M and TJ Morris, which trades as Home Bargains, came third and fourth with pre-tax profits of £151.1m and £147.1m respectively.
United Utilities was forced to pay compensation to hundreds of thousands of Lancashire customers after the cryptospiridium crisis left some county households without safe drinking water for a month.