Here we go...who's next..?

[robs]

Oops

Thames Water says it can't pay back £190m loan

Thames Water boss tells MPs it doesn't have enough money to pay back a loan due in April next year.

www.bbc.co.uk

Thames, which serves 15 million households, and its parent company Kemble Water, owes a total of £18bn in debt.

Its own auditors have warned it may not continue as a going concern.

"The company has said it will need another £2.5bn of investment in the coming years but that is contingent in part on the regulator, Ofwat, agreeing to household bills increasing by 40% on top of inflation by 2030."

Maybe Rwanda is higher priorty....?

 

[Ponty]

‘They also warned that if it was nationalised, taxpayers would face a hefty bill.’

No we wouldn’t. Let them fail, rather than bailed out.

 

[sq225917]

F, them, let it fail so its worth nowt, then let's take it back.

 

[Ponty]

Absolutely. Should have done that with RBS and sold the rotten carcass to the highest bidder.

 

[a.palfreyman]

Quick Google shows water co chief execs on £2-3 million salaries....

 

[sean99]

F, them, let it fail so its worth nowt, then let's take it back.

Then send the board of directors to Rwanda.

 

[Graham B]

Absolutely. Should have done that with RBS and sold the rotten carcass to the highest bidder.

Couldn’t have done that with RBS. They were too heavily leveraged with other banks (including central bank) due to their funding model, and they were responsible for the infrastructure running worldpay and swift at the time. If they had crashed, they would have brought down Barclays, Lloyds, HSBC, BNP, JPM, Citi and more. In short, worldwide banking collapse. No atm’s or online payment systems would have worked, and no authenticated swift messages could be sent to attempt to shore it up. Brown and Darling did the only thing they could and averted total disaster.

 

[Cav]

Take all utilities into public ownership.

 

[alanbeeb]

If Thames Water fails, who is going to provide clean safe drinking water for the South East? Privatised Utilities, what a nonsense, the public will always have to bail them out, no choice. That they were borrowing money in order to pay dividends..... people should be going to jail.

 

[Cav]

If Thames Water fails, who is going to provide clean safe drinking water for the South East? Privatised Utilities, what a nonsense, the public will always have to bail them out, no choice. That they were borrowing money in order to pay dividends..... people should be going to jail.

The Government will appoint commissioners until it is decided what to do long term. The public does not have to bail anyone out.

 

[Jubal]

Thames Water - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

I can’t vouch for the veracity of Wikipedia but paying dividends for years while racking up £14bn debt. Says needs £2.5bn just to stay afloat. Nice work for all those who trousered the “profits”.

In my eyes, it’s fraud. In theory we could forensically analyse every transaction in history since privatisation and claw it, or the proceeds thereof, back.

 

[matt j]

Thames Water - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

I can’t vouch for the veracity of Wikipedia but paying dividends for years while racking up £14bn debt. Says needs £2.5bn just to stay afloat. Nice work for all those who trousered the “profits”.

In my eyes, it’s fraud. In theory we could forensically analyse every transaction in history since privatisation and claw it, or the proceeds thereof, back.

But that was the whole point of privatisation, so it worked as intended.

 

[Jubal]

But that was the whole point of privatisation, so it worked as intended.

Legal fraud. You’re right. That’s alright then.

 

[cctaylor]

All I can say is thank goodness Scotland didn't go down that route.

When the other utilities were privatised they had infrastructure which was reasonably fit for purpose and could be maintained and upgraded with fewer problems.

The Victorian water and sewage system was past it's sell by date and modern lifestyle and population growth puts increasing pressures on it. The required updates need eye-watering levels of investment which the current model will struggle to provide. Water prices will have to rise substantially I'm afraid.

 

[Sue Pertwee-Tyr]

They need to let it fail, to send a message to other privatised utilities. They won’t, because this was always the point.

 

[Hip-Priest]

That they were borrowing money in order to pay dividends..... people should be going to jail.

Agreed.

 

[Nero]

Thames Water - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

I can’t vouch for the veracity of Wikipedia but paying dividends for years while racking up £14bn debt. Says needs £2.5bn just to stay afloat. Nice work for all those who trousered the “profits”.

Chances are, it was your pension fund.

 

[Ponty]

Couldn’t have done that with RBS. They were too heavily leveraged with other banks (including central bank) due to their funding model, and they were responsible for the infrastructure running worldpay and swift at the time. If they had crashed, they would have brought down Barclays, Lloyds, HSBC, BNP, JPM, Citi and more. In short, worldwide banking collapse. No atm’s or online payment systems would have worked, and no authenticated swift messages could be sent to attempt to shore it up. Brown and Darling did the only thing they could and averted total disaster.

You’re in the too big to fail camp then. All banks have interdependencies. The failure of any bank is nothing which shouldn’t be able to be handled effectively by regulators. They could be insolvent but still be operational until sold. As happens with companies in administration.

Northern Rock, Lehmans etc went pop, so should have RBS. Nothing to do with the origins of certain key politicians at the time, I’m sure.

 

[Kirk]

Is water a right in this country?

 

[Bob McC]

Is water a right in this country?

Well you can’t have it cut off for debt.