Thames Water: Will government save water company from collapse?
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- Опубліковано 27 чер 2023
- The government says it is working behind the scenes to ensure that Thames Water customers won't be impacted as rumours circulated today that the company, which is £14bn in debt, is on the verge of going bust.
The company - the UK's biggest water supplier - is looking to raise cash from investors.
Meanwhile the Chancellor was meeting regulators from various industries - including water - to see what could be done about lowering prices.
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Privatisation: if it goes well, the shareholders get dividends. If it goes badly, the public get a bill.
Even if it goes badly shareholders get dividends
Thanks tortes, thanks thatcher. Thanks
That's what they call :
" Corruptalista Capitalista..Asta Lavista, Give me my Dividents Baby."!
🤗😳😱
The people always get the bill. Its corporate socialism.
@@dc6807 many of the controlling interests are offshore investment funds. Good luck looking for tax revenue from them!
How can the UK be "sovereign" when they don't own anything in their country, from car manufacturers to sewage and water companies that every Brit rely on?🙄 Not everything should be privatised and in the hands of foreign shareholders, water and sewage systems should stay owned by the government. It's about vulnerability, the UK is not running anything in their own country.
You'd think that we'd have a public resources provider wouldn't you. A means to get the very basics to sustain human life, ie water and electricity. Allowing these necessities to be privatised gives control to corporate giants to decide costs for their benefit and in cases like thames water put people at risk.
Yep. The didn’t tell that to the masses during the Brexit debacle.
Laughable. 🤣🤣🤣
Well said!!
Should've voted for Corbyn then
I've been waiting since water privatisation for someone to explain to me what competition there is in the Water business. I live in London so the only company I can get water and sewerage from is Thames Water. By it's nature the Water Inductry is a natural monopoly which should never have been removed from public ownership and the current state of Thames Water proves it.
There is no competition and it's not just London, it's across the UK. Every water company runs water for a section of the country and there is no overlap, so if they tenfold the price, there's nothing you can do. Unlike energy, you can't switch, but that said, the energy market collapsed and now there is no one to switch to, since all the little competition have just died.
Privatisation improves quality. I mean, we can't pretend water as we have it now would be what it is if it was under government control, since there's no way the government would fund it properly for improvement. But privatisation increases cost and exposes it to turd like this. That said, if we're being absolutely honest, privatising meant money is being tipped into shareholders' pockets, which is terrible, but publicly owned just means the money would be tipped into ministers and theirs cronies' pockets, which is equally as terrible.
If anyone here thinks publicly owned means this wouldn't happen, then wow, which rock have you been living under? A six figure salary after two years results in an offshore bank account holding tens of millions, like yeah, that totally adds up, because that offshore account is held by their wife's sister's boyfriend's pet dog's chew toy.
You misunderstand big time..... is a "competition for the profits"... .. think finance...
@@DanteLovesPizza No its not across UK. Scottish water is in public ownership, and with no shareholders to pay is over 5Bn in the black.
@@DanteLovesPizza I think the pizza has addled your brain.
@@markwilkie3677
No, you misunderstand. My comment on "across the UK" referred to a monopoly and there is no competition for water supply. If you're supplied by Scottish Water, you don't have an alternative supplier. It's the same across the UK, water suppliers don't overlap each other's territories.
They tried to privatise water in Ireland, we protested big time, it is still public. Who thinks this is the only company???
Never vote to privatise water. The crooks will take over and install meters.
Crazy that we have to bail out these companies over and over again
As long as people keep voting for neoliberal parties, they will keep privatising core public infrastructure (and underfunding that which they can't privatise).
Keir Starmer and Ed Davy won't do what's necessary and bring in legislation to re-nationalise water, energy & public transport, and until someone does things will keep declining.
It's almost like it makes no sense to privatize a service company of public interest.
That's because privatisation is used to funnel our money into the pockets of the already wealthy.
They know you'll accept it not that you've got a choice
@@danielwood2901 Labour are just as bad and you know it
Shareholders take money out, they should be legally obligated to pay in when needed.
I think you should be prime minister lol
Thing is though, they might be beneficiaries but they aren't in charge of how the money is divvied up.
It's the board of directors that essentially bribe the investors in order to get them to agree to big pay awards for themselves.
That’s how it works in the world. Oh and massive regulatory failure and governments ignoring it all.
@@nicholasdickens2801government's don't ignore it! They are the problem! They do not represent the population anymore! They represent themselves & their interests as has allways been.
@@nicholasdickens2801 happily here in Scotish Water is publicly owned still. Money made is reinvested and not paid out to shareholders.
No public services should ever be privatized.
A recipe for waste and inefficiency. Look at the state the NHS, just imagine every public service being in the same mess ?
@@jjefferyworboys8138it’s inefficient with privatisation too.
They have invested almost nothing since privatising Thames water. It’s called milking the asset - the government gave them public assets at pennies to the pound then let them milk those assets into worthlessness.
If that’s what’s you call efficiency, count me out.
This is what you can expect to happen when you privatize public services. No one should be surprised.
I'm neither for nor against privatisation, because I see the good and bad of both sides, but have you ever imagined what state run water supply would be like in the UK?
I live in an area supplied by Northumbrian Water. I would consider the price dear, but their water quality is normally voted top in the UK. At the same time, UK water quality is usually considered to be top 5 in the world. This literally means, despite from a small town, the water supply I get is top 5 in the world. This is what privatisation has brought. There's absolutely no way I'm getting this water quality if this supply was run by the government, I'm beyond certain on this.
@@DanteLovesPizza Top 5 water 🙄 im sure some remote african region can do better without infrastructure and pesticides in their soil and seriously these day advanced country recycle sewage water what "quality" are u talking about
@@petitpoucet8113
You can take that up with professionals that actually measure water quality.
Or maybe you're unaware of the rest of the world's circumstances and take it for granted.
Talk about being privileged, ey?
It already is privatised you planks!!
@@DanteLovesPizzawell great- Thames water was privatised 40 years ago though..
Why should the taxpayer be on the hook to bailout mostly Tory shareholders?
That's how the UK works.
Of course you must. you were born to serve to Tories
because we keep voting for them, silly
@@julianshepherd2038thats how the corruption works is more accurate
@@brerhare9118
Well generally the majority of the electorate hasn't voted Tory.
It's the first past the post system that allows them to stay in power.
A service that every person in a nation needs to survive should not be private, make it public
A recipe for waste and inefficiency.
@@jjefferyworboys8138yep, more reasons it should be public.
Greggs?
@@jjefferyworboys8138stop repeating your dumbfuck opinion everywhere without backing it up.
Water, Gas, Electricity should all be state owned. The roads should be state owned, hospitals, you know what anything that involves supply of essential services to the public should be paid for directly by taxes with no profits. It’s very simple.
Railways too.
@@YA-hm5zy The British approach to railways is uniquely weird. You buy a ticket from A to take a train operated by B, owned by C, maintained by D, operating on rails maintained by E. B gets a local monopoly, which they purchase from the government.
@@vylbird8014 it's just how many ways can we cut this pie. They have absolutely sucked everything out of the British public in every area. While making themselves very rich. The service is an absolute joke.
you mean like communism ?
@@888ssss no. Communism isn’t central government supply of essential services to its people. It’s just common sense. Communism is the propagation of everyone being the same, this is not what I am saying. Democracy and capitalism can work, with industry that its supposed to work with, but when it comes to public essentials, the police, hospitals, water and sewerage, energy, and everything else that comes with it, this is no place for private companies to make profits for shareholders. It’s paid from the taxes of those capital gains from companies, private taxpayers and it should be used to deliver the essential services that the people rely on with no profits being the goal. It should be taxes to meet the needs of the people and private companies run by the people.
Water industry debt of 60 billion.... Dividends paid out of 66 billion. So basically they borrowed all the money, paid it to themselves and now want to hand back the keys. This is the highest level of corruption. Sieze their accounts and assets. How does this keep happening!!!
Yep. Hold each shareholder, regardless of size liable for the debt. Own 1% of Thames water?
Congrats you own £660mn of debt. If they had any backbone they’d make it unbankruptable like student debt.
Same old story: privatise the profits, socialise the losses. The government have no interest in regulating this corporate disgrace. Maybe the market principle should not apply to essential things like water ? Just a thought.
Let's see, they have been private since 2006, have paid out £72B in profits to shareholder, yet can't plug a leak because they claim they are skint... sure ¬_¬ Let it fail, then we buy it back cheaper. No way should we bail them out, they would only give the money to shareholders and still fail at some point in the future.
Incorrect, they have been private since 1989, Thames Water has been sold and re-sold several times since then, the most recent was in 2006.
Why do they need a cash injection when they have been milking the public for year upon year? 💷 💧 💷
The fact that a company supplying something as necessary as water is stock listed is an absolute disgrace. The fact that it can lose billions is a scandal. Look forward to hearing exactly how they’ve lost it and how we as tax payers are once again going to bail out the governments mates.
I think the Tories were running out of things to privatise at the time. She was stealing from tomorrow, knowing she'd be dead by the time it all went wrong.
@@dc6807 Tell yourself why they are in debt? They gave 60 billion to shareholders and now want us to fund their corruption. The corruption is mindblowing
How can dividends be greater than debt?
Debt of a service company of public interest is a public problem.
@@gnhonho Who lent them the money? They must have been insane.
@@SA-ff9uc on the contrary, it's guaranteed money back. The water company cannot go under, people need water.
@@SA-ff9uc The owners loan the money to the company, which is used to offset tax, which means the owners get paid three times, and the company pays no tax. Profits go into offshore accounts of the owners, the owners receive loan installments plus interest, and finally, dividends. It's win, win, win, and the only losers are the customers and the treasury.
@@SA-ff9uc here, here. Take it back and don't pay the "investors" a dime.
I live in the UK and am so scared like what is going on with this country ??? 😠😠😠
Thatcherism is eating its tail now.
B - R - E - X - S - H - I -T
Tories.
It seems, from a distance, that you are governed by psychopaths.
@@mildlydispleased322113 years of ‘em
This is what happens when you privatise essential services. Here in Ireland we fought to keep water in state ownership-ie Uisce Éireann (Irish Water).
the government were paying attention, they knew exactly what was happening.
Privatisation is going well I see. Thanks Thatcher and the Tories 😂
Maggie said private companies knew better how to handle business than state owned who had a habit of wasting money. A classic example would be the NHS . It’s easy to spend other people’s money sorry I mean tax payers money! What Maggie didn’t bank on was the corporate greed and sheer incompetence.
I remember back in the late 70's very early 80's demonstrating against all this. The crazy part is the vast majority of Tory voters were ordinary every day workers - oh well we've got what they voted for.
NHS is next on the list
As soon as the noise around the water companies not investing in infrastructure and paying out massive dividends started to gather momentum and resonate with the public. These problems magically appear. I get the feeling the dividends and the debt would have grown for years more if the calls for major investments weren't being heard so loudly. I would love to see who sold their shares in the company within the last few months also. Did any tory ministers or friends of ministers just magically know to sell up before this announcement. I imagine the Tory pension funds aren't invested in Thames water but the nurses, doctors and teachers pensions probably are no doubt.
Not when the companies have managed to kill off the population, such that the government realises that the population figures are dropping off like flies.... and that they are no longer MPs. Cos there are no people to provide water with !!! So yeh.. you would think that the penny finally drops !
Ahh so the gov calls for less sewage into rivers which will cost these private companies billions and now all of a sudden they’re going bust. Investors pulling out and selling their shares? Keep public services publicly funded.
The basic infrastructure such as water, roads and power should be in public hands. Privatisation doesn't work for these things.
And yet this government (and many others) is unable to run itself, let alone adding more and more public infrastructure to their list of responsibilities. Rock and hard place comes to mind.
@@mjrc123 I agree that the current government is a bunch of bumbling fools, but the infrastructure itself wouldn't be run by politicians, but rather by professionals in that industry. This was always the case, the government is like a merry go round, always changing. Public ownership comes with its own issues without a doubt. But it also comes with advantages.....A major positive difference being that shareholders wouldn't skim money off of the top constantly. Any money generated could be invested back into the infrastructure, not sucked out of it. 71 billion paid out in dividends for the water industry since privatisation, 64 billion of debt run up...... now imagine how much better the infrastructure would be if that 71 billion had been invested into it? Yes we would still have that debt, but we might just have a functional system to show for it. Instead we have what will be a huge public debt and a collapsing water system, that'll cost another how ever many billion to fix.....
Let it go bust
It is criminal to hand over pay outs to investors when the company is financially in trouble. People who voted for such should be held accountable in a court of Justice.
Thames Water introduced an on-line water leakage reporting system, which I used a year ago and got no acknowledgement, reply or action. Basically they do not care.
The leakage rate from Thames Water pipes is the highest for five years and the company will not meet its target to plug them this year, according to information released under freedom of information laws.
Yep totally useless. Im sure it made a nice slide on an investor relation presentation a few years ago though…
I love the way the senior management flit off with a golden goodbye to move on to another company. No accountability same as the banksters who continue to shaft us.
I would like my country back please!!
I look at Brexit and think that too!
🏴 YES
Me too. Unfortunately it’s been cleverly transferred to overseas private equity/pension funds which just extract rent from UK citizens without delivering any innovation or investment
When they are taking Bonuses in the Millions,.... They are happy not to share their Profits with us.
When they makes losses,... They want to share their losses with us,..... Does that make sense?
The alternative is to let the business fail and then deal with the fall out. When its something as essential as water failure isn't an option.
@@jjefferyworboys8138 Then the bailout package needs to be in exchange for equity being returned to the British Government.
Should not be allowed to pay out dividends if you are in debt.
Debt is not profit & yes I know how it works but that doesn't make it right.
No, you are right. In fact in many private companies, if their debt rises faster than their profits, they withhold dividend payments. Which obviously makes it less attractive of an investment but it reflects the real world situation of a company that aims to survive.
The fact that they took out debt to service their dividends strikes me as a core corruption issue. They never intended to make the company survive, they just wanted to pay themselves as much as possible and make the public pay off the debt.
As soon as it was announced that the infrastructure for water supply needed updating, costing millions of investment... no one else see this one coming?
Thames today & all the rest will follow, be the same with trains & other privatised service providers!
Thank you to every politician involved with this, over the decades 👏
Yes there seems to be a pattern over the last few decades doesn't there?😮
Darren Jones is the guy to watch, fantastic in select committees hope to see him on the front benches.
I love his grilling of these fat cats
Private companies that provide public services should be not be allowed to take on so much debt. There needs to be regulatory safeguards against the self-interest of share-holders.
They wouldn't be in this situation if they stop giving out ridiculous amount of bonuses and dividends.
Shareholders who don't receive dividends tend not to remain shareholders and without investors the company has no future.
@@jjefferyworboys8138 So make services and infrastructure publicly owned... Profits go back into the service, as it should do.
@@TassieLorenzo Google and read the Clifford Chance report into nationalising Water. Very eye opening.
Could easily save money by nationalising the lot. 24 billion over 140 billion. Plus the companies would work more effectively being in public ownership
@@dc6807 "SA Water is a successful, modern water utility that is wholly owned by the Government of South Australia. We employ more than 1,400 South Australians across a broad range of disciplines who operate over $14 billion of assets. We deliver essential water and sewerage services to more than 1.7 million South Australians." Seems to work...
@@dc6807 Everything would get upgraded, and work for the people not for the profits though. Under privatisation it's all profit not for the people. Water companies shouldn't be allowed to get away with this.
@@dc6807 The companies themselves should pay for it. If they had the funds. Clearly Thames Water doesn't although this pictures a much bigger picture as to which water firm is next. Ultimately in a working democracy, with things working for people I would be fine if taxpayers money was used to upgrade the infrastructure we rely on so much. it becomes a problem when taxpayers money goes to dividends and shareholders.
@@dc6807 The £4.1bn project designed to clean up the Thames by preventing more than 95% of sewage spills. While the project is based in London, its benefits extend beyond the city, including a healthier ecosystem, positive impacts on wildlife, tourism, and the economy, and the introduction of new processes and technologies.
Plus the Govt already said they would step in if it goes above that amount.
@@dc6807 While it is understandable to have concerns about the cost of the project, it is important to consider the long-term benefits it will bring such as those I just mentioned.
Excellent questioning by Krishnan.
Yes, he was very good today.
An abject disgrace.
Sarah Bentley should be investigated. You don't just walk off and days later her company is about to collapse.
Darren Jones is a future leader in the making. A very impressive guy.
Is this a joke? They literally paid out huge bonuses
They never pay their debts. They privatised the losses and run off with the profits . They take out subsidised loans and pay it out to shareholders instead of improving the company
Its called moral hazard. They have no incentive to run a well functioning and successful company in the conventional sense because they, like the banks, know that they will be either bailed out or taken into public ownership. They cut back investment, milk the dividends and load up the debt knowing full well that the Government will step in once it all goes sour.
This is exactly what privatisation was and is all about. Not competition or sustainability, just getting the boy's snouts in the trough for an all you can eat feast.
Why should the government bail out Thames Water with taxpayer money. As with any other company if it goes bankrupt and the entity is subsequently liquidated it allows the infrastructure and resources they leave to be bought up for pennies, and given the government have ultimate oversight they can have first refusal on it all. That sounds like better use of public funds, and an easy way for the infrastructure to brought back under public ownership. At the end of the day a government bail out simply bails out the shareholders !!
If you look at who actually owns Thames water you have: China Investment Corporation, Queensland Investment Corporation, Infinity Investments SA, Stichting Pensioenfonds Zorg en Welzijn. Maybe we should be asking the Austrialia, China and Saudia Arabia governments to pay for bail it out as thats where all the money has gone.
Maybe water company should stop leaks in pipes (if that’s what they are) that cause reservoirs to run short and stay low levels all the way to November.
The leakage rate from Thames Water pipes is the highest for five years and the company will not meet its target to plug them this year, according to information released under freedom of information laws.
In any company a typical person works in and has shares in, if company performance isnt good dividends dont get paid out. The fact they still are (among many other privatised assets) tells us its not about performance but greed. Greed under the knowledge the govornment will just bail them out.
Darren Jones will be our future PM if we are lucky.
Who is Darren Jones?
@@andyjosiah4951 Bristol MP interviewed in the video.
Good to see the Secretary of State(?) sitting in front of two £2,000 a pop (RRP slightly more than that) chairs. Good to know where the money is going…
Certain public services should never be privatized.
I'd like a break down of all MPs with shares in Thames Water.
A privatisation success story
For Thames Water
Not all businesses are successful. The NHS is hardly a success story for public ownership ?
@@jjefferyworboys8138 you think it’s publicly owned…..? Have a look into its management post Thatchers free market economy
The Water Minister should be sacked and have her pension stripped
Its not a coincidence that so many investment firms buy up shares in water companies. You just extract all the profit, don't keep up with maintenance and then in 20 years time when the pipes are all f'd and your dumping nappies in the rivers you disenvest.
I am not supprised , South West Water where I live has one of the highest bill rates in the UK , this is supposedly to keep our beaches clean for the tourism industry . Fact is they were ranked 3rd for sewage release in the uk, many areas in Devon and Cornwall are marked as areas of outstanding natural beauty ( Dartmoor , Exmoor and Bodmin Moor ) but are having farm waste and sewerage being pumped into them daily!
In 1989 the sell-off in England of the water companies by the Tories to private monopolies with a weak regulator was touted as the route to greater efficiency and investment. But between 2002 and 2018 Scottish water, which remained publicly owned, invested on average nearly 35% more per household than the English water companies according to researchers at Greenwich university.
We will see what happens with Scottish water. They said they don't discharge sewage into rivers and they do. Why else is there personal hygiene products and a bad smell on the clydebank
Ever get the feeling you've been ripped off?
I used to work for a company that was bought by Macquarie Group....
It has been alleged that they moved in, completely recapitalised the company with insane loans from Macquarie's own bank, they had an "efficiency drive every six months or so where managers were simply told to "cut overheads at any cost", starting wages went down year on year, they did anything they could to make people redundant, and hollowed out the company. Similarly they offered what the government would consider to be "an essential service" so Macquarie relied on the fact that the government would step in if things went south.
They eventually sold the company for a big fat profit, as a shining example of "private enterprise". A few years later the new owner realised it was all smoke and mirrors, and once they really understood what was going on, it dawned on them that all they had really done was buy a giant pile of debts owed to Macquarie's own banks;.... allegedly.
Does this story sound familiar?
Here is what will happen. Gov will save the company by giving 0 interest loan essentially, they'll picture it as buying some of the company, then when it gets back on its feet it will sell it back at dirt cheap or maybe even a loss. Those guys in charge who have been giving themselves bonuses will again sell at high price, take another bonus, bankrupt it again and repeat the cycle till they move on. Other people who were to fail at their jobs would be fired, not these people, on their cv they made profits.
Oh cool, so after they dump sewage into the waterways, take all their profits and dividends, the taxpayer bails them out 🤔
It’s a win-win for them.
The alternative is to let the business fail, it's only water and who needs that ?
The alternative is to regulate them properly and stop them taking profits and dividends if they're not doing their job properly, before it gets to this point.
Hang on…I thought Private companies were supposed to run things more efficiently than the state? Yet the state keeps having to bail out private companies. Am I missing something here? 🤔
Yes, Tory lies.
Cuz in some way after decades of massive dividends to enrich a few shareholders, private sector in the west today is more kin to "socialism to the ultrarich" than an actual free capitalist market
All the money made gets paid to shareholders in dividends
this country is falling apart at the seams... water, electricity , schools, inflation, interest rates, housing, food prices, the NHS, the legal system, the police, public transport, all while our taxes are insanely high and billions are siphoned off. yet here we all are sitting on our hands sneering at people and unions trying to do something. British "keep calm and carry on" attitude needs to die.
How any economic and governmental system can allow a company that has debt to pay share dividends is beyond me. Especially when the company will use the same situation as an excuse not to increase workers salaries.
@@user-rq5sd1sq8o For one thing, having debt can be great for tax efficiency.
@@user-rq5sd1sq8onothing wrong there then no? The rich just stay rich and the tax payers who just shut up and just keep paying
@@dc6807 This is a corporation, not an individual, so different tax laws apply. But same basic problem. When dealing with large enough sums of money, hiring accountants to 'tax-optimise' the organisation is cheaper than paying the un-optimised taxes.
Kemi telling the truth,"I don't know too much..." Never was a truer word spoken!
😂😂😂😂😂
The only difference between a strictly regulated nationalised public service and a strictly regulated privatised public service is that a portion of the money that would have gone to providing services in the nationally owned one go to shareholders in the private version. The best case scenario is that slightly less money is spent on providing the service or the service is slightly more expensive. The worst case scenario is shareholders run off with the family jewels and the tax payer has to pay for it. Please explain how this was ever thought to be a good idea?
Tory privatisation and deregulation is equivalent to sewage, but according to Sunak, let's all just hold our nerve. Paying out dividends but not paying down debt. Wasteful, awful government.
£66Bn paid in dividends to foreign shareholders while in £14Bn of debt. The Government says customers won't be impacted. Yeah, right !!!
I bet they still paid record profits to their shareholders this year. Imagine having a money leak almost as big as the water leaks and considering it the best way to run a public service.
It;s getting way too often where dividends completely eat up the budget.
My god the tories don't have a clue what is happening do they?
Move here to Scotland, it never stops raining, a news story this morning reads, UK temperatures to rise to 40 degrees, but that's only in south England, we had sun for a week, that's our summer over,
Publicly seize it from the private investors and pay back the debt over time.
Let the greedy shareholders bite the bullet after milking the company by creating debt with low investment
I would suggest the fall in the number of Albanian refugees is more to do with the fact the living standard in Albania is no longer that bad compared to the UK
I think that is the governments strategy, make living conditions for everyone in the UK so bad that no one will want to come here anyway.
I can imagine how the living will be so hard and struggling of water. Lack of water to drink will be dehydration automatically malnutrition until death. The government must handle it well
Executives of these major utilities should be made to stay in the job and solve the problems not just ‘resign’ when they feel like it. They have had all the fat-cat wages for years, but when things get difficult, they just give up and run! In entities like water, energy etc there should be oversight by the relevant government department and a degree of force used to make the management of these utilities do their jobs!
Someone has been mishandling the cash
They cant just Resign they need to answer
I was literally threatened by them to pay something I don’t have to pay, saying that they will refund me later. It’s just disgusting dumping their debts on their customer. It’s insane how they got their payment for all the way until the end of the year and still ask for payment in 2024 (my contract expires on 31.12.2023). And this is their fault in the first place. They told me to pay until the end of the year in 1 go and they will ask for payment in 2024 in 2024 from new tenant. They lied. Got a threat for credit filing and court order which is absolute mental. Ended up paying the 2024 even though I’m not renting anymore. I will never ever renewing my contract with them. I’m actually rooting for their downfall. A business model which preys on the vulnerable is never sustainable. They treat their customer like trash and dare asking for our tax money????!!!!!
Similar story from me.
@@dc6807 I called them in advance abt that and they told me to pay in one go….
Lucky all those of billions of rate payers money went to shareholders. Would have been such a same if that money had been spent making the businesses financially sustainable and the services meet minimum standards
No bailout, take it back into public ownership.
It was Thatcher that did this, and they hold her up to be some kind of ideal person. It’s ruined our country and still people think she was great 🤦🏽
Its a sham and a disgrace through sheer greed by the directors of Thames Water , it should be renationalised NOW, without any compensation along with the rest of them. So much for tory privatisation, thank you mrs thatcher🤬🤬🤬🤬
There is absolutely no reason for water to be in private hands. I have no choice on which provider I get my water from so there is no incentive for them to improve service or lower prices. If they make profit, we lose through higher payments and if they fail, we pay through bailouts
No it should be taken back to public ownership
Wow corruption and money grabbing
66 bn £ of dividends!!!!! And the public will foot the bill! This is robbery!
Water is essential to life. It's too important to leave to greedy business men.
How long will they see in prison and how much of their personal wealth will they forfeit for their decades of failure?
‘I am the lead minister…’ thank you for bringing this to up, I forgot …’ - what is wrong with this government? Is there anyone competent left in this government?😅
Inflation does not affect equally “all of us”!
Tax those that work and give to those that don't!!!!! It's only fair.
We really are turning into a developing nation. Just so sad and embarrassing. Our country is a company only focused making money and annoyingly for those companies, some people seem to live there.
£14bn in debt yet has paid out £57bn since 1991 in dividends!
I do hope the Investors got their money out first, I'm always happy as a tax payer to bail out greedy tw.ts.
The Torries are like the water pipes...
A great big BUST!
They drive me round the bend
From day one the Regulators have failed to do their job, unless their job was to benefit the Water companies and fleece their customers. The water companies were sold of cheap because of the money that was required to update the infrastructure. Almost from the beginning the water companies then turned round and said we need to put up prices to pay for the upgrades. That was not supposed to be the plan they were supposed to take the risk and give their customers a better service with no huge price increases. The regulator said go ahead and put up your prices. Instead of using that money to pay for the infrastructure they announced record profits and paid an increased dividend. Then the leaks increased so they again went to the regulator for an increase in prices. Did the regulator ask what did you do with the money from the last price increase, it appears not. The water companies said we need the money to do the work and so they got it. Again leaks increased and we even go rationing and the water companies went back for even more money. Then they started asking to borrow money for the work they needed to do to maintain their own business and once again the regulator said yes. It appears that some of that loan money was then paid out in dividends (is that not fraud borrowing money for one purpose then giving it away to the shareholders). Then the water companies went running to the government asking for a weakening of regulation on sewage dumping because their systems (that we were told they were improving) couldn't cope so the government said yes. Then recently they have gone back yo the regulator asking for even larger price increases to do the work they said they needed the earlier money for. They refuse to put their own money in unless they get their way. The regulator and government should say no they've had thirty years to sort this problem out, let them go bankrupt and let the government pick up the business from the administrator and while they're at it ask the fraud squad to investigate what has been going on and what if anything the regulator has been doing.
Water was privatised by Thatcher in 1989. The old water authorities' small debts were paid by Govt and the private companies bought them at knock down prices.
Take Thames Water back into public ownership.and and don't give the share I was a penny.
Sounds like systematic asset stripping or even fraudulent behaviour
Should thames water be taken over by government? ?? The government that has allowed it to be asset stripped by shareholders. Giving permission to dump sewage is acknowledgement that there was no investment. Take over the companies but the customers have already paid for the needed investment. Go after these investors for taking payments for a service not delivered.
Rich people taking money from billions in loans under the company name, run the company into the ground and it's off into the sunset. Meanwhile public taxes are then used to keep the water running. Modern day Britain to a tee.
Nationalise it and charge the companies previously responsible with mismanagement of government / public funding .
Funneling far too much profits into shareholders and investors rather than saving it for bad times,
If you want to attract and retain shareholders and investors the returns have to be attractive.