The firm is in a race for cash after investors said they would not give it extra money unless bills rise.
www.bbc.co.uk
Bills have to rise to pay returns to foreign investors, Thames Water says.
I don’t see any way out of this apart from re-nationalisation.
The brass neck of that statement is galling.
Private company delivers terrible service.
Locally to us allowed 200 tankers of human waste to fester in the hot sun without adequate safety measures
Also locally to us, allowed rain to wash excess human waste out of treatment facility into populated areas.
Given carte blanche to pollute waterways.
Allows E-coli to flourish in a nation's capital's river.
Puts shareholders first.
Wrings hands and warns about rising prices.
In what dystopian version of reality is this considered acceptable?
edit
Thames Water is heavily indebted, with a large proportion of its £14.7bn debt pile having been run up when it was owned by Macquarie, an Australian infrastructure bank.
Interest payments on its debt have also sharply increased.
Macquarie has said that it invested billions of pounds in upgrading Thames's water and sewage infrastructure while it owned the company.
But critics argue that it took billions of pounds out of the company in loans and dividends - which is a share of a business's profits that is paid to shareholders.
However, during the 11 years of Macquarie's ownership, which ended in 2017, there were substantial dividend payouts to shareholders. In this period debts more than tripled from £3.2bn to £10.5bn (unadjusted for inflation) as Macquarie borrowed against the company's assets to increase dividend payments. During these 11 years £2.8bn was paid to shareholders, 40% of the total £7bn in dividends paid in the 32 years from 1990 to 2022.
As of July 2023, the company listed its shareholders as: OMERS (32%), the
Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS - 20%), Infinity Investments (a subsidiary of the
Abu Dhabi Investment Authority) (10%),
British Columbia Investment Management Corporation (9%),
Hermes Investment Management (manager of the BT Pension Scheme) (9%), the
China Investment Corporation (9%),
Queensland Investment Corporation (5%), Aquila GP Inc. (5%), and
Stichting Pensioenfonds Zorg en Welzijn (2%).
[15] Shareholders have not taken a dividend since 2017, though the company has paid internal dividends from the operational business to holding companies to be able to service its debt obligations
So Macquarie plundered their share, ditched the dog in 2017 and stuffed a bunch of Investment Vehicles with the burden. Since then the investment companies have seen little to no return, and are understandably getting upset.
Meanwhile, millions of people suffer as a result of Macquarie's actions and they'll never be held accountable.