corporation industry water gas and electricity fate broke up founded 1996 defunct 2001 headquarters cardiff website http www.hyderconsulting.com hyder was a welsh water gas and electricity multi utility and infrastructure company created in 1996 . it broke up in 2001 following a financial crisis . contents 1 history 2 the sale and break up of hyder 3 name and logo 4 references history edit hyder plc was created in 1996 following the takeover by welsh water of the electricity company swalec for 872m . by 1998 it was wales largest independent private employer and had quadrupled its turnover since 1990 since 1996 . hyder owned swalec and swalec gas brands and combined international leisure infrastructure and construction interests . other subsidiary companies brands of hyder included transis operator of fleet vehicles laing hyder construction consortium hyder investments celtic infrastructure and lusis it provider several hotels in wales a small stake in cable company ntl and a 36 % stake in severoceske vodovody a kanalizace the czech water company . however the debt taken on to finance the takeover of swalec left the company vulnerable to external shocks . in these circumstances the 1998 windfall profits tax on the utilities introduced by the new labour government combined with the price cuts required by the 1999 ofwat price review made hyder s share price plummet from a peak of 1048p in january 1998 to a low of 179p in march 2000 . the sale and break up of hyder edit in february 2000 the retail electricity and gas business under the swalec brand was sold to british energy for a reported 105m . the sale included the swalec retail brand whilst hyder retained the swalec electricity distribution business i.e. running the electricity network which was renamed infralec . the cash boost however was not enough to prevent a 30 % fall in pre tax profits and following the final outcome of the unfavourable ofwat price review hyder was vulnerable to a takeover . hyder was acquired in september 2000 following a four month takeover battle won by western power distribution wpd a subsidiary of the us utilities ppl and southern company . southern company later sold its interest in wpd to ppl . hyder s electricity distribution subsidiary infralec was rebranded as part of western power distribution . the water subsidiary welsh water was sold by wpd to a company limited by guarantee glas cymru while remaining subsidiaries in areas such as gas and engineering consultancy were sold off by management buy out or other means including hyder consulting and hyder business services hbs . hyder s it organisation was acquired by logica in 2001 . chief executive graham hawker went on to run the welsh development agency . name and logo edit the name hyder pronounced h d r is the welsh word for confidence . hyder s name and logo used to be prominent in the seating at cardiff s millennium stadium . hyder still remains as a brand used by hyder consulting . the hyder logo is also still used by hbs 1 . references edit thomas dennis 2000 hyder the rise and fall of a multi utility utilities policy 9 181 192 subsidiaries graham hawker sale of swalec electricity and gas retail and supply purchase and sale of swalec prices takeover battle news releases including financial statements hyder business services hbs retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title hyder defunct company & oldid 705684904 categories defunct energy companies of the united kingdomcompanies established in 1996companies disestablished in 2001 navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages add links this page was last modified on 18 february 2016 at 23 25 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; additional terms may apply . by using this site you agree to the terms of use and privacy policy . wikipedia is a registered trademark of the wikimedia foundation inc. a non profit organization . privacy policy about wikipedia disclaimers contact wikipedia developers cookie statement mobile view