What do they deserve then? They're private companies with obfuscated parent entities with shareholders / investors that bled them dry. Realistically what should happen to a private company with a failed business model?
What does one usually do when one party is (as good as) innocent and gets ****** to hell and back by another party, the latter of whom then cuts and runs to escape punishment?
Separation from the parent entities and some kind of reset (unless you can get that money back), so they can get back to doing their jobs would be my guess.
For most truly private companies bankruptcy would be just a sad event, but water companies are responsible for public assets and life-essential services. They (supposedly) are
not allowed to fail and their parent companies should not have been allowed to go this far.
Unless you can find a new set of owners, the government now has little option but to step in if they want things to pick up any time soon.
Are they able to continue running and pay their debts?
This has yet to be seen.
It's currently being argued that it's perfectly possible, but it will take a long time and depends upon things like the bill increases.
I think
@ttaskmaster's view on this is quite personally influenced and I get why - 'Thames Water' as such, have arguably just been attempting to do what they're tasked with doing by DWI/EA/OFWAT with the funds they've got and it wasn't 'their fault' that Macquarie tore the backside out of them, left barely any money to actually deliver the work needed before dumping and running with a ticking time bomb of a debt structure left in their wake.
Even if it weren't personal to me, I think most people would agree that's rather unfair to put the blame for that on TW. It's a bit like blaming a nurse for something caused by an external NHS fund management company... except nurses are usually prettier.
For people attached to 'Thames Water' who have just been trying to do their job it probably feels a little unfair that their jobs/work/livelihood etc. might be at risk in some fashion because the company has to fold as a result of ownership practices from 10-15 years ago.
Most people in this industry specialise in something and it's a lifelong career as a result. There just aren't many other places where the skills and knowledge are especially transferrable, even in vaguely similar industries like oil pipelines... otherwise we'd probably have been rats off a sinking ship.
To some extent even employment security isn't a concern, as the only way a renationalised industry would keep functioning is if they employ us, because we're the only ones who have the real-world know-how, experience and the relationships to actually run things.
For my part, I'm effectively now the only person available to TW with certain certificates of competence, either internally or among their approved contractors. There are a couple of others, but they're either semi-retired or work as self-employed consultants and are very expensive (I understand commuting from Fuerta Ventura is quite costly).
This is obviously no different to any other company going bust really, where the employees are effectively innocent victims of high level corporate greed but from the perspective that
@ttaskmaster either works for Thames or in the supply chain, I get why the attitude of "**** 'em, let them all go under" probably stings a bit on a more personal level.
It's partly that the collapse of a major water company also destroys all their contractors.
We all specialise in this industry alone, with many of our employees moving between each other and the water companies themselves. We employ a number of ex-TW staff, as they have the knowledge of the networks, processes and the operational procedures. Thames also hire from us, for the same kinds of expertise. We train under TW, and also train them in certain things. The working relationships are so close that some of us are 'embedded consultants', meaning we work at TW sites and offices, report to their managers or manage their staff, get all their internal comms, go to their Christmas parties and are essentially TW employees in all matters save for an actual TW contract.
It's quite incestuous, in some respects.....!
But if TW are allowed to go under, they'll take a lot more than just themselves down with them, and you'll lose a lot of resources essential to even a nationalised, government run service.
The disruption and loss will be much higher than most people realise.
