Scotland's energy giant SSE will rebuff any approaches from foreign suitors, chairman Lord Smith of Kelvin has told shareholders, whilst admitting he was "shocked" at the mis-selling humiliation which saw SSE fined £10.5 million this year.

Lord Smith was asked by a shareholder at yesterday's annual meeting in Perth whether new chief executive Alistair Phillips-Davies, successor to combative chief executive Ian Marchant after his 10-year reign, was as dynamic and forward-looking or would "collapse at the first European mainland company who wants to buy the company out".

Lord Smith responded: "We searched the world, we looked internationally and nationally and Alistair came out tops against the competition, he is dynamic and forward-looking. We have no intention of accepting offers from people overseas, we haven't had any yet, but we intend to rebuff them."

Lord Smith, chairman since January 2005, confirmed afterwards: "In my entire time as chairman of the company no foreign company has approached us."

On whether any UK group had made an approach he said: "I am not prepared to comment on that."

On whether the threat of a takeover had receded, he said: "I think it is less likely. You can see what other utilities are doing, a number of them are having to sell off assets, some of them very large continental companies.

"It's always a possibility, but I don't lie awake worrying about that."

In answer to another shareholder question, Lord Smith said Scottish independence would not affect SSE's location. "I don't see why that should change," he said. "We are here and we are going to stay here."

To a shareholder citing tax avoidance by the likes of Google, the chairman said SSE did not "use any schemes that would reduce our tax liability", adding that it was "a British company".

Lord Smith, who told shareholders the company was proud of its "six core values", had earlier told them that "everyone associated with SSE is sorry" for the mis-selling scandal which saw the company fined £10.5m for promising new customers illusory savings between 2009 and 2011 if they switched supplier.

He said 9000 customers had been refunded an average £75, and the exercise was 98% complete. SSE had responded by offering customers the best service guarantees in the market, including a £20 payment if the company failed to meet promised standards.

"It is early days but we believe this service guarantee is exactly the kind of thing that will engage customers and build trust in SSE as a responsible energy supplier."

Lord Smith admitted later that the core values had been in place at the time. He said he had been "shocked" by the episode but that "everyone makes mistakes" and organisations were measured by "the way they deal with situations like this".

The chairman also had to ­apologise to shareholder and customer Professor Keith Britton who asked why SSE had sent him a bill for £6098, 10 times his real usage, because it had been unable to believe that a meter was faulty, showing "a lack of honesty, lack of transparency, lack of customer service and deliberate overcharging".

ScottishPower's chief executive Keith Anderson earlier this week questioned the costs of the government energy company obligation (ECO) programme and said they could feed through into higher energy bills.

But Mr Phillips-Davies on his debut was more emollient. He told shareholder Margaret McKay, asking whether the cost of all such initiatives could be shown on bills, that energy efficiency measures had reduced household energy consumption by 20%, though the initiatives probably made up at least 10% of bills.

Mr Phillips-Davies commented later: "I am not going to be in the blame game. People will blame us as and when we next have to change prices but let's have a rational debate about this.

"Many of the government schemes are sensible, some of them maybe we disagree with and we would lobby and argue to change them."