Portrait of Sahar Shamsi, CFA

Sahar Shamsi, CFA Partner

We engaged Sahar and the team at Oxera to provide expert opinion on a hotly contested price control dispute. To meet this challenge required Sahar and her team to deploy their world class technical expertise, whilst maintaining sufficient flexibility and resourcefulness to respond to the issues at hand. Our client achieved a truly amazing result which was in no small part due to Oxera's work

Partner, Collas Crill LLP

Sahar jointly leads Oxera’s Energy and Climate Economics teams. She specialises in finance, with a focus on the economic regulation of utilities. She has advised companies and regulators across the UK, Europe, the Middle East and Australasia. Sahar has been seconded as a lead Economic Adviser to the UK Competition Commission (now the Competition and Markets Authority, CMA) to advise on regulatory finance issues.

Sahar has given expert evidence in the UK and internationally, including in Austria, the Channel Islands and New Zealand, on financial issues in price controls. She has prepared expert evidence on finance and competition issues in many UK High Court proceedings, as well as in international tribunals such as ICSID. Sahar leads the delivery of finance modules in Oxera’s Utility Regulation and Utility Finance courses. She has also taught the postgraduate course in Economics for Competition Law at King’s College London, and delivered training on damages valuation to national judges on behalf of the European Commission. Sahar has been listed in the Who’s Who Legal guide as an Energy Expert since the inaugural experts guide in 2018, including being ranked as a Global Elite Thought Leader in multiple listings. She is the Lexology Client Choice award winner as Energy Expert 2024.

Sahar speaks English.

Tel: +44 (0) 20 7776 6624

Sahar's specialisms include:

Selected
professional experience

  • Financial, incentives, risks and control design advice to many UK energy networks in relation to the RIIO-3 controls, including ENA, the GDNs, NGN, National Grid, and SPEN (2023–)

  • Directed a study on RIIO-3 cost of equity and balance of risks and returns (2023)

  • Advice on GB energy retail market design issues, including capital adequacy, ring-fencing of customer balances, profitability analysis and options valuation in relation to the energy price cap for Centrica, Scottish Power and E.ON (2022–23)

  • Financial, incentives and control design advice to a number of UK energy networks and system operators in relation to the RIIO-2 controls, including the Energy Networks Association, NGN, National Grid, SSE, SPEN, WWU and NGESO (2017–22)

  • Advice on financial returns and operational incentives, including pension deficit recovery and network performance evaluation mechanisms in RP7 on behalf of Northern Ireland Electricity Networks (2022–24)

  • Directed Oxera’s independent review of the UK energy retail market on behalf of Ofgem’s Board (2022)

Selected
publications

  • Shamsi, S., Song, D.Y. and Kristensen, J. (2022), ‘The Oil and Gas Law Review: Establishing a Hydrogen Value Chain in Europe’, The Law Reviews, Edition 10, October.

  • Kristensen, J., Slomka, M. and Shamsi, S. (2022), ‘Economic and Financial Issues in Renewable Energy Arbitration’, Global Arbitration Review, November.

  • Shamsi, S. (2020), ‘Expert view: “Legitimacy means balancing affordability and financeability”’, Utility Week, March.

  • Shamsi, S. (2018), ‘Expert view: Creating a flexible framework for energy regulation’, Utility Week, June.

  • Shamsi, S. (2018), ‘The evolution of UK energy regulation’, Utility Week, September.

  • Kristensen, J., Jenkins, H. and Shamsi, S. (2018), ‘Forum: Energy Investigations’, Special Report, Financier Worldwide Magazine, October.

Qualifications

  • MSc Finance, London School of Economics and Political Science, UK

  • MA Economics and Management, University of Oxford, UK

  • Sahar Shamsi is a CFA® charterholder

Latest Insights:  Sahar Shamsi

Agenda
16 minute read
Depiction of Ofgem’s RIIO-3 Sector Specific Methodology Decision

Ofgem’s RIIO-3 Sector Specific Methodology Decision

On 18 July 2024, Ofgem published its Sector Specific Methodology Decision (SSMD) for the forthcoming RIIO-3 price control period for electricity transmission (ET), gas transmission (GT) and gas distribution (GD)…
Agenda
9 minute read
Depiction of ​​Ofgem’s RIIO-3 SSMC​

​​Ofgem’s RIIO-3 SSMC​

On 13 December 2023, Ofgem published its Sector Specific Methodology Consultation (SSMC) for its forthcoming RIIO-3 price control for electricity transmission, gas transmission and gas distribution networks. Oxera summarises some…
Agenda
5 minute read
Depiction of What does the cost of debt tell us about the cost of equity—part two

What does the cost of debt tell us about the cost of equity—part two

How can data on the cost of debt be used to improve estimates of the cost of equity? A previous article on this topic, published in May 2023, explained that…
Agenda
4 minute read
Depiction of What does the cost of debt tell us about the cost of equity?

What does the cost of debt tell us about the cost of equity?

Applications of the capital asset pricing model (CAPM) in some sectors (e.g. banking, utilities and infrastructure) imply very low estimates of the cost of equity. But when does ‘very low’…
Courses

Utility regulation and finance: principles of economic regulation

Over the course of more than 40 years, Oxera has developed and run training courses to help companies, regulators, investors, policymakers and lawyers to develop their knowledge of economic regulation and understand the key building blocks of a price review. Economic regulators make decisions that shape the revenues companies can… Read More

Image depicting Utility regulation and finance: principles of economic regulation

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