Thames Water nationalisation plan could move bulk of £15bn debt to state
Thames Water nationalisation plan could move bulk of £15bn debt to state
Exclusive: Under Whitehall blueprint for water company some lenders could lose up to 40% of their money
Hold the fucking phone! The plan is to renationalise, fix it, then sell it again? That's a joke right? That's just a bailout with extra steps!
What is to stop Thames Water from going down the exact same road again when the private bullshit is reversed exactly?
Communism for the rich, capitalism for the poor.
Socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor. - FIFY
"A communist society would entail the absence of private property"
Aye, it is a whole thing.
All of the "safeguards" they used to get the public to accept privatisation back in the day were sleights of hand.
I like to mention it often, but in Germany state run water companies run self-sufficient and even make money to invest in keeping the infrastructure alive. In my city we have a water loss of less than 2% due to well maintained pipes. Thames Water is losing like 25%!
I still can't believe how this company got to grift the British people in broad daylight and is now asking for more to grift and government in charge still wants more of this.
Thames is the worst for loss. They claim its due to serving London. The age of the city and difficulty accessing many pipes due to shouting down traffic.
Sorta sounds reasonable. Untill you look at how much money has been taken out. Its clearly more about profit.
Sounds like we're up the river without a paddle my friend
Why not let it collapse. Let them claim bankruptcy. It might mean lenders in the future require better governance. Or it might lead to pushes to reclaim monies inappropriately siphoned off.
Yep, bankruptcy and let the state or a cooperative buy the assets, not the liabilities.
Exactly. Let the investors and banks that allowed them, eat the losses. That's what privatization is. Risk.
Unfortunately, commercial interests in the governments ear will try to say that it will cost them as they will get less for future provatisations. Good. If they are not commercially viable, don't do them. They forget in that argument that they may get more but they would be on the hook for more later to clean up similar messes.
Yep. The UK in the past has had the military distribute water. 1976 when heat caused shortage issues. But other times as well when communities have had issues.
Same thing can be done in 2024 while the company struggles to survive. I'd much rather money spent on that. Then paying of investors who made loans based on bad company investment.
Why tf teach lenders that the UK will bail out companies that fail to invest in the inferstructure they manage.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcXMhwF4EtQ
We're on about clean water here for clarity?
Gotta Pay for that Money
Counter-argument: we could tell them to go piss up a rope.
Nah they will just choose the mooring lines used in the Thames.
Investing is no different than gambling, if your investment failed. You should taken the L and learn your lesson on checking that Billions aren't being syphoned out of the company.
Nationalize the assets (appropriation) and leave the people who did the syphoning have to pay it back. It is their problem not Britain's.
If you can't be trusted to work for the people you are serving, you shouldn't be running that particular company
I don't want no Thames water thank you very much.
Yorkshire Water, rip us enough already and is an easy supply.
Ugh
The whole idea behind PFI (or whatever it is called now/today) is to move state debt off balance sheet.
There's no way there isn't going to be a PFI shitty (for the tax payer) deal involved. Probably with the same shareholders as the former Thames Water.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Thames Water could be renationalised, with the bulk of its £15.6bn debt added to the public purse, under radical plans being considered by the government, the Guardian can reveal.
The blueprint, codenamed Project Timber, is being drawn up in Whitehall and would turn Britain’s biggest water company into a publicly owned arm’s-length body.
The company serves 16 million customers in the London and Thames valley regions, but its finances have been left threadbare after previous shareholders siphoned out billions of pounds of dividends and it was hit with hefty fines for pollution and leaks.
However, forcing lenders to bear financial pain would be highly controversial, given Thames’ creditors include some of the world’s biggest asset managers, which lent to the company on the assumption that their investment carried the same gold-plated risk rating as government debt.
While public corporations are known as arm’s-length bodies, the move would ultimately allow the government far greater control and scrutiny of Thames’ day-to-day operations, sources said, speeding up its reform and return to the private sector.
Ofwat, meanwhile, has sought to gather its own intelligence on the state of Thames’ assets, and believes the company’s challenges are similar to those of other water operators who are not making the same financial claims regarding their business plans.
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