Who Owns ScottishPower?

ScottishPower is owned by Iberdrola, the Spanish utility, which bought it in 2007. Despite the name it has not been Scottish-owned for nearly two decades — though it remains Scottish-registered, in Glasgow, with an SC company number. Companies House records Scottish Power Limited (SC193794) under a UK holding company, and the chain leaves the register well before Spain. Ownership verified 6 September 2026.

Who owns Scottish Power today?

Iberdrola S.A. of Bilbao owns it. Iberdrola is listed in Madrid and is one of the largest electricity companies in the world.

The British companies are all registered in Scotland, at St Vincent Street, Glasgow:

• SCOTTISH POWER LIMITED (SC193794), incorporated 19 February 1999
• SCOTTISH POWER UK PLC (SC117120), incorporated 1 April 1989
• Scottish Power Energy Networks Holdings Limited and Scottish Power Retail Holdings Limited, both from 2010

Scottish Power Limited’s person with significant control is SPW Investments Limited, at 75% or more of shares and votes with the right to appoint and remove directors. Iberdrola is not named on any UK filing.

The 1 April 1989 incorporation is the electricity privatisation, the same date this site records for Thames Water — the day the industries were constituted as companies ahead of sale.

Ultimate parent and corporate structure

The group is split by function, and the division is a regulatory requirement rather than a preference.

Networks — the wires and substations across central and southern Scotland, Merseyside, Cheshire and north Wales — is a regulated monopoly. Nobody chooses their network operator; it is determined by geography.

Retail — the energy supply business customers can switch away from — is separately held.

Ofgem requires that separation so that a company owning the wires cannot favour its own supply arm over competitors using the same network. It is the same logic as Openreach’s separation from BT, covered elsewhere on this site — though ScottishPower’s networks business, unlike Openreach, is not a separately governed company with its own board.

The practical consequence is worth stating: a customer who leaves ScottishPower for another supplier is still connected through ScottishPower’s wires in those regions, and still pays for them.

Major shareholders or controlling persons

No individual controls ScottishPower or Iberdrola. Iberdrola’s shares are widely held, with a very large Spanish retail shareholder base alongside institutions, and it has attracted sovereign wealth investment — Qatar’s fund has been among its larger holders.

No holder approaches control, and none appears on Companies House, because the UK register stops several companies below Spain.

Official records and evidence

The company numbers, the 1 April 1989 and 1999 incorporations and the SPW Investments PSC entry are Companies House records and can be checked directly.

Two limits. The register names a UK holding company and does not name Iberdrola, so the Spanish ownership is established by the 2007 transaction and Iberdrola’s own disclosures rather than by any British filing. And Iberdrola’s shareholders are disclosed under Spanish market rules, to the CNMV, rather than in a form a British reader would encounter first.

The regulator that matters for a customer is Ofgem, which licenses supply and network operation and publishes the licence conditions — a separate register from Companies House, and the authoritative one on who is permitted to supply energy. Companies House does not verify most filed information.

Ownership history and changes

ScottishPower was created by the privatisation of the Scottish electricity industry.

• 1 April 1989 — the South of Scotland Electricity Board’s businesses are constituted as companies; ScottishPower is floated in 1991.
• 1995 — buys Manweb, the Merseyside and North Wales distributor, which is why a Scottish company owns the wires in Chester and Wrexham.
• 1996 — buys Southern Water, and sells it again in 2002.
• 1999 — buys PacifiCorp in the United States for a reported $12.6bn — a Scottish utility acquiring an American one — and sells it in 2006 at a substantial loss.
• 2007 — Iberdrola acquires ScottishPower for a reported £11.6bn.

The PacifiCorp episode is the reason ScottishPower was available. A mid-sized Scottish utility that had expanded aggressively into America and water, then retreated from both, was left small enough to be bought — and the 2007 sale ended Scottish ownership of the company that carries the country’s name.

It is not alone. Scottish and Southern Energy remains British and listed, but Scottish Widows belongs to Lloyds Banking Group, covered elsewhere on this site. A Scottish name is not evidence of Scottish ownership.

Related companies and brands

Iberdrola owns ScottishPower, SP Energy Networks, Avangrid in the United States and Neoenergia in Brazil, alongside its Spanish business — and it is one of the world’s largest developers of onshore and offshore wind.

ScottishPower’s own generation is now entirely renewable: it sold its gas and hydro generation to Drax in 2018 and has since run only wind. That was a strategic decision by its Spanish owner, not a British one.

It is not connected to SSE, Scottish Water — which remains publicly owned, unlike every English water company — or Scottish Widows. Nor to E.ON, EDF or Octopus. Britain’s energy suppliers are largely foreign-owned: EDF by the French state, E.ON German, ScottishPower Spanish — with Octopus and Ovo among the few significant British-owned exceptions.