Splitting utilities on geographical lines?
Should Scotland become independent, then I can see that if the regulation becomes more onerous, it will be in the interests of several utilities, and their respective shareholders, to divest split into separate subsidiaries on geographic lines and even, perhaps, into wholly separate companies.
There would be tricky issues to resolve, especially where, historically, services such as IT are fully integrated. This could lead to a considerable increase in costs. But, if the regulatory regimes across the border are very different, then this would inevitably increase costs too.
In the case of some utilities (including that of BT), it may not be in the interests of Scots as I'm pretty sure that the (overall) lower population densities and greater distances involved will mean that the network north of the border is more expensive to maintain (per property) than that of the more densely populated rest of the UK. That might lead to wholly different calculations for things like wholesale line cost calculations.
Of course it might leave some interesting questions on how pension deficits are to be funded, although I imagine such liabilities could also be split on geographical lines.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
