The South Staffordshire Waterworks Company, was formed in 1853 to provide "an abundant supply of pure water" to the inhabitants of the towns of the Black Country.
South Staffordshire Waterworks Company became a public limited company in 1991 and was listed on the London Stock Exchange as South Staffordshire Water. In 1992 South Staffordshire Water Holdings was created to grow non-regulated businesses.
In April 2004, in recognition of the success of those non-regulated businesses, South Staffordshire Group Plc de-merged South Staffordshire Plc, which included South Staffordshire Water, Echo, Rapid, Underground Pipeline Services and Aqua Direct, as a separate listed company on the London Stock Exchange.
In November 2004 the Group was acquired by by Arcapita Bank, a Bahrain company, at a price of £11.20 per share (£237m including debt) and the Group was delisted from the Stock Exchange.
In order to broaden its range of water and wastewater related specialist infrastructure services, South Staffordshire acquired OnSite in March 2005, Brocol in December 2006, Hydrosave in March 2007, Perco in September 2007, Portadam in December 2007 and Wells Water Treatment in April 2008.
In February 2006 the Group also aquired Office Watercoolers, a supplier of bottled water coolers.
In October 2007 South Staffordshire Plc was acquired by Alinda Infrastructure Fund, a European and American investor in infrastructure assets.