plan for collapse of Thames Water

[PlacidCasual]

This is an aspect that that a needs a serious blunt approach. Investors need to know loss; irrespective whether its pensions funds or not. It would seem to me a necessary penalty, a demonstration for all involved in this sector and others in the public sphere that if you bleed a company to collapse, everyone loses. As I think I posted several months back, yes the regulator needs to regulate but companies also need to act in good faith and within the legal framework of whatever licensing and operating conditions they sign-up too (how difficult can it really be to change these whether in situ or upon renewal).

I get it, I really do. I understand and know in part some of the history, which is why the continual seemingly "do nothing to fix" approach frustrates me.

Companies like MacQuarrie should be disbarred from M+A activities in the UK for 10 years or something. A slightly more robust approach to Governance of essential national infrastructure is required.

 

[darkgen]

Companies like MacQuarrie should be disbarred from M+A activities in the UK for 10 years or something. A slightly more robust approach to Governance of essential national infrastructure is required.

Totally agree but the legal framework also needs to be in place to prevent such deleterious actions in the first place. It continues to be the wild west out there when it comes to such corporate behaviours and I've yet to see any reaction from any place to stop it. Grrrrrrrrrrrr.

 

[StriderX]

Pointless as they'll just rebrand as something else, the people are the problem and they're entire lack of consequence.

Sanction them like the oligarchs they are.

 

[ttaskmaster]

This is an aspect that that a needs a serious blunt approach. Investors need to know loss; irrespective whether its pensions funds or not. It would seem to me a necessary penalty, a demonstration for all involved in this sector and others in the public sphere that if you bleed a company to collapse, everyone loses.

Companies like this don't generally lose, though. They'll have so many fingers in so many pies that they can afford to take a rather minor hit on the entire water industry of a piddly little nation that no-one actually cares about... and most of their money will be protected in various ways.

As I think I posted several months back, yes the regulator needs to regulate but companies also need to act in good faith and within the legal framework of whatever licensing and operating conditions they sign-up too (how difficult can it really be to change these whether in situ or upon renewal).

They mostly have been operating within the legal framework. They just haven't had the money to do anything of note, and instead had to use that legal framework to try and mitigate anything deteriorating.

I get it, I really do. I understand and know in part some of the history, which is why the continual seemingly "do nothing to fix" approach frustrates me.

Fix?
Sure, no problem. Will get it done right away.... I'll just go get some money allocated to the project.... oh, nope, it's gone already. Shareholders took it.
Sorry, no money, can't do anything.

I've been on quite a few rennovation schemes, and this is generally how it goes. You get the budget to do the studies and some of the surveys, you get as far as identifying the worst assets, but then there's no budget for the follow-on repairs.

 

[darkgen]

Companies like this don't generally lose, though. They'll have so many fingers in so many pies that they can afford to take a rather minor hit on the entire water industry of a piddly little nation that no-one actually cares about... and most of their money will be protected in various ways.



They mostly have been operating within the legal framework. They just haven't had the money to do anything of note, and instead had to use that legal framework to try and mitigate anything deteriorating.



Fix?
Sure, no problem. Will get it done right away.... I'll just go get some money allocated to the project.... oh, nope, it's gone already. Shareholders took it.
Sorry, no money, can't do anything.

I've been on quite a few rennovation schemes, and this is generally how it goes. You get the budget to do the studies and some of the surveys, you get as far as identifying the worst assets, but then there's no budget for the follow-on repairs.

This is kinda my point. There does not appear to be any willingness to "fix" or "change" or "improve" these situations. There's seems or at least to me a total void of governance or even a vague ooomf from anywhere to improve / change any of this.

 

[ttaskmaster]

This is kinda my point. There does not appear to be any willingness to "fix" or "change" or "improve" these situations. There's seems or at least to me a total void of governance or even a vague ooomf from anywhere to improve / change any of this.

I've got dozens of PMs chomping at the bit to fix, change and improve all manner of things, if they could only get the budget to actually do it.
The problem is that there's no money. It's all gone to Macquarries.

It's like being back in the 70s, when things needed doing, but water boards couldn't get funding from the government.

 

[jpaul]

now too late for bank holiday swimmers , but discussed a few days back on r4
not sure why they are not obliged to say when the discharges occurred

The top five worst sewage discharges near Blue Flag beaches last year were all in Devon.

The worst beach impacted was Seaton, where South West Water discharged sewage from nearby storm overflows 340 times last year - lasting 4,629 hours.

The second worst beach was Exmouth where South West Water dumped sewage 214 times last year, over 1,984 hours.

Devon was also the area with the greatest number of spills recorded by any event duration monitor nearby a Blue Flag beach in England, with an overflow by Meadfoot pumping out sewage 140 times last year.

[DATA PRESS RELEASE] Blue Flag Beach Sewage Spills 2023

docs.google.com

 

[darkgen]

I've got dozens of PMs chomping at the bit to fix, change and improve all manner of things, if they could only get the budget to actually do it.
The problem is that there's no money. It's all gone to Macquarries.

It's like being back in the 70s, when things needed doing, but water boards couldn't get funding from the government.

Fatalism aint gonna wash forever. Water provision cannot really fail (at least to the taps). I'd want the government to go in hard with license / operation contractual rewrites, which include heavy penalties / debt write-offs and asset buyback as significantly reduced cost when companies collapse / fail. It cannot be unfathomable to legislate protections for these key infrastructure services whereby when a collapse occurs; the taxpayer maybe on the hook for limited asset buyback but then whatever is left of the company can then fight it out between themselves who gets what from that limited buyback, independent from government.

Ultimately all of these private service providers are seemingly underwritten by the taxpayer. May as well get the possible deal.

 

[ttaskmaster]

Fatalism aint gonna wash forever. Water provision cannot really fail (at least to the taps). I'd want the government to go in hard with license / operation contractual rewrites, which include heavy penalties / debt write-offs and asset buyback as significantly reduced cost when companies collapse / fail.

Debt write-offs just allow the purse-string holders to get away with it. Penalties on them only work if you can enforce them.
Penalties on a company that's already been robbed just puts them further into debt.
Water provision can indeed fail... it just shouldn't ever be allowed to, and there should have been protections in place to stop it from getting this bad. This is now what we need more than ever, so that the companies can actually do their jobs, without the worry of outsiders sticking their fingers in.

It cannot be unfathomable to legislate protections for these key infrastructure services whereby when a collapse occurs; the taxpayer maybe on the hook for limited asset buyback but then whatever is left of the company can then fight it out between themselves who gets what from that limited buyback, independent from government.

There is already legislation in place for government takeover following failure/collapse events.

 

[Oh Ed not again.]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2lgl9kypno


Infuriating.

VC/PE buy utility company
Bleed it dry
Payout to shareholders and execs
Borrow, get indebted
Payout to shareholders and execs on repeat
Reduce services and underinvest in network, resulting in contamination and sewage dumping
Wring hands and blame the regulator and government for not giving them enough money.

Perhaps the most galling thing is that the BBC and other news agencies are giving water companies the first say and a platform on which to protest. These sons of female dogs deserve nothing but bankruptcy.

 

[darkgen]

I dunno why I do this to myself but following on from the above - Thames has now piped up restating it needs ~60% increase against ofwats previous proposal which was published in July that water providers cried about.

I've nothing really to add that I've not regurgitated ad nauseam already in the thread.

e: Oh I just clocked it's the same link as above which they must have updated and expanded upon when I read it first. Ignore me

 

[Cold Fusion]

I dunno why I do this to myself but following on from the above - Thames has now piped up restating it needs ~60% increase against ofwats previous proposal which was published in July that water providers cried about.

I've nothing really to add that I've not regurgitated ad nauseam already in the thread.

e: Oh I just clocked it's the same link as above which they must have updated and expanded upon when I read it first. Ignore me

<Insert ItsaGundam Drag Queen Laughing... No .gif>

 

[ttaskmaster]

Perhaps the most galling thing is that the BBC and other news agencies are giving water companies the first say and a platform on which to protest. These sons of female dogs deserve nothing but bankruptcy.

Why do they deserve bankruptcy?
They were trying to do a job and got ripped off by their masters, to whom they were only sold because the government wasn't funding them. What good is punishing them going to achieve?

Water companies got their say, because that of the owners' would either be, "No Comment" or "Ha ha, you bell-ends, we took all your money and are living the dream on some tropical beach with it. Well done, you ******* morons. Don't feel bad, though - My mate is a Nigerian prince who sells bridges for a living, and he has a fabulous investment proposal for you.....".

 

[darkgen]

Why do they deserve bankruptcy?
They were trying to do a job and got ripped off by their masters, to whom they were only sold because the government wasn't funding them. What good is punishing them going to achieve?

I can't help myself but you're going to have to expand on this please.

Why would the government be funding anything? Thames Water is a private company. Was/Is the sales from it's provision monopoly not enough to fund it's operations, investments and development? I know the answer is no due to historic malfeasance (legal or otherwise) to load up loans and debts against assets.

BUT if you ignore Kemble and stick with Thames itself, how can you defend the most recent CEOs (Chris Weston / Alastair Cochran) taking ~£100ks in bonus pay, the newly in-post CEO alone, accepted ~200k bonus for a 3 month period between Jan and March of this very year. Considering the companies financial landscape ands operational failures, how on earth can that be justified with a straight face.

 

[ttaskmaster]

I can't help myself but you're going to have to expand on this please.

Up to 1987, the industry was funded by the government.
Under most governments it was chronically under-funded and hampered by bureaucracy. As it became more regionalised and unified, it started to become profitable under Tory control, while Labour governments reversed many of the processes, resulting in water quality so bad that the European courts prosecuted the UK.
The cost of metting standards was so high, Thatcher's Tories decided the only way to fund this was privatisation.

The industry was then sold off to its respective entities, ie the ten water companies with the monopoly.
These were later bought up by their respective masters, many of whom happily took the profits and saddled everyone with debt.

BUT if you ignore Kemble and stick with Thames itself, how can you defend the most recent CEOs (Chris Weston / Alastair Cochran) taking ~£100ks in bonus pay, the newly in-post CEO alone, accepted ~200k bonus for a 3 month period between Jan and March of this very year. Considering the companies financial landscape ands operational failures, how on earth can that be justified with a straight face.

Quite easily...
Thames is ******.... ****** beyond belief.
After previous CEO Sarah Whatshername suddenly cut and ran, Weston came in and achieved various performance targets, for which this is an incentive payment to which he is contractually entitled.

My question to you is, given how ****** Thames Water appears to be.... how much would they have to pay YOU to go in and sort all that **** out?

I bet it's a lot more than half a mil......

 

[darkgen]

Quite easily...
Thames is ******.... ****** beyond belief.
After previous CEO Sarah Whatshername suddenly cut and ran, Weston came in and achieved various performance targets, for which this is an incentive payment to which he is contractually entitled.

My question to you is, given how ****** Thames Water appears to be.... how much would they have to pay YOU to go in and sort all that **** out?

I bet it's a lot more than half a mil......

Heh. I would not bother. As far as I can see they've had a swing-door of CEOs, paid handsomely, taken bonuses and achieved absolutely zero. Whatever performance measures they use are simply a remuneration gimmick for these so called "best people" to step in to that toxic limelight to soak up some heat before the next chancer has a go.

We're back to fatalism with this lot I fear.

e: my point to drop to Thames behaviour was to refer back to my "companies acting in good faith"; irrespective of the parent Kemble and its shells, Thames itself, to my thinking, is not much better. Still milking the drying teat till the last.

 

[ttaskmaster]

Heh. I would not bother. As far as I can see they've had a swing-door of CEOs, paid handsomely, taken bonuses and achieved absolutely zero. Whatever performance measures they use are simply a remuneration gimmick for these so called "best people" to step in to that toxic limelight to soak up some heat before the next chancer has a go.

There's a difference between 'best people' and 'the only ones stupid enough to do it'.
There was a glimmer of hope with the Scottish guy, but when he started to actually rock the boat by making real and effective changes, the Masters found a way to boot him out of the picture.

e: my point to drop to Thames behaviour was to refer back to my "companies acting in good faith"; irrespective of the parent Kemble and its shells, Thames itself, to my thinking, is not much better. Still milking the drying teat till the last.

They acted in the best faith they could afford. The good intentions were always there, but too many hands were tied.

 

[doodah]

I dunno why I do this to myself but following on from the above - Thames has now piped up restating it needs ~60% increase against ofwats previous proposal which was published in July that water providers cried about.

I've nothing really to add that I've not regurgitated ad nauseam already in the thread.

e: Oh I just clocked it's the same link as above which they must have updated and expanded upon when I read it first. Ignore me

That's over twice the rate of inflation over the last half decade or so, they don't have a viable business model?

 

[b0rn2sk8]

That's over twice the rate of inflation over the last half decade or so, they don't have a viable business model?

The goal posts have moved as much as anything else. They were originally privatised on the basis of maintaining the status quo and that was pumping A LOT of turds into rovers and the sea.

Thats no longer acceptable and to fix it requires a lot of investment. Customers pay for investment via bills over the long term, ergo bills go up to pay for it.

The financial mismanagement hasn’t helped but it’s by no means the only issue.

 

[200sols]

They have too much debt now to function under the existing framework. They cant pay down the debt and invest in the infrastructure. Yes the system is designed for sewage to be spilled but they are doing it even when its dry.