Former Treasury Minister Says Thames Water Shareholders Should "Be Left With Debt" 

Absolutely. They have pulled billions out of this company. They should not be allowed to walk away.

"Owners loading up a company with debt" sounds like a problem for lenders and owners. What does that have to do with anyone else?

Smells like fraud. The shareholders should pay

No government bail out ! Why should we who live in other areas and pay our bills, bail out this company from a different area ?

The water bills are crazy in the uk 🇬🇧

I don't like this idea of temporary privatisation... that's just making the tax payer pick up the bill for the debt.. and then handing it back once is out of the red..... but I wouldn't expect anything else from from this government though.. All the while, shouting about fiscal responsibility...

If a company owes this amount of money , the management and shareholders should be held to account. This british establishment have made rules that allow them to take money out of a company and when things go wrong it doesnt cost them anything.

Put the company into administration. Wipe out the equity. Convert any convertible debt into equity. Restructure the remaining debt. Also re-write the rules to tighten up how leveraged utility companies like this can become.

This is a national scandal and the regulator looked on and watched it happen. Likely too many 'cosy' conversations between the regulator and TW and now an ex regulator is appointed to run TW! You could not make this up. So, as shareholders own the company that must also include the debt. Customers have already paid and paid and have had to suffer the consequences of the cash that should have been invested in water infrastructure going to the wrong places.

We all know what's coming around the corner, a tax payer funded bailout and millions of customers will have to pay this in higher bills while a few individuals walk away with millions in the bank and no consequences, this woman is absolutely right let the people who created this mess to pick up the debt.

Angel Knight talks sense, yes do leave the debt with the company and their share holders. We must show these predators they will no longer get away with stripping the U.K. of its assets in order to become millionaires. No more selling of our vital services, particularly to foreign companies and foreign governments.

If the company has Chinese and Arab owners ,how much have they taken out of the company and how much responsibility do they have? No way should our money be used to settle the debts. Must be declared bankrupt and we can start anew. Who will run it ?

If we bail these dodgy companies out I’m gonna be bloody fuming 😡

Just looking at the headline I agree. They were happy to take money as dividends year after year, so they can shoulder the debt as well. Otherwise banks, water companies and anybody else will never run responsibly if they know they will still get payouts and bonuses and when it goes wrong the taxpayer bails them out and pays for it all. Taxpayers cannot be seen as a safety blanket when companies are continually badly run.

A company that has to borrow money, rather than take money out of profits, to pay dividends and bonuses is trading insolvent - which is illegal. It's a cruel world.

To claim in minute 7 of the video that it was worse when it was nationalized or in the governments hands might be correct for the UK. (I don’t know) However you don’t need to privatize water companies to get great quality. In Scandinavia and here in the Netherlands we have the best water quality in the world (To be fair, UK is also sharing the number one position) and these companies are financially sustainable. We pay a little less than 2 euros per cubic meter of drinking water, so the costs are ok.

Keep exposing the establishments corruption !!

Hit 80k today. Thank you for all the knowledge and nuggets you had thrown my way over the last months. Started with 8k in Jan 2023

In the immortal words of that Simpsons character, Nelson Muntz, "HA, HA."

Don’t bail them out. Let them go under and pick it up for free. Any criminal charges that could be made should be made.

Like always, do this, do that, but make the people pay, yet no one hold accountable, but the plebs?

The lenders who are owed the debt will not be stupid. They will have secured the loan against the assets. So what happens in a bankruptcy. The creditors own Thames water, not the state, and the shareholders lose. Then if you want to nationalise you have to pay the creditors for the assets.

so ideally a shareholder owns the shares for years collecting the dividends, then when people start talking about this stuff, sell it off to someone (at a lower price since it's not looking great), but you'll be off the hook when/if they finally decide to nail the debt to the shareholders.

To all Thames water customers, stop paying the bbc poll tax. You will require that money to pay all future water bills.

Shareholders need to foot the bill on this one

I am so glad thames water is going bust as they made me go bust , they bought everything around Abingdon and East Hanney for the massive abingdon reservoir project apart from two places mine and a agjacent small holding , to cut a long story short two rep's from said company made us a offer and we accepted ,we totally refurbished the house so they could rent it out until buildind work began ,then a few years later they pulled out .This left us 250 k out of pocket ,caused a divorce,bankruptcy to me ,and virtually homeless as the house was sold for pennies .They were not interested as nothing was in writing etc' even the two men could not believe head office actions ,so LET THEM ROT

Why should people who live outside the Thames Water area have to bail out the company? These companies have paid out billions to shareholders over the years instead of investing in new network. It should be up to shareholders to keep the company afloat or lose everything.

If Thames water can't pay the bills, send in the bailiffs and put it back into public ownership.

I live in Bulgaria, and a typical water bill for our house is about 6 Euro/ a month. How does that compare with the UK?

I am just going to put it out there, just a theory, but the Thames catchment area, i.e. greater London is hugely overcrowded, 90% of migrants gravitate toward that area, all the water and sewage systems needed to sustain the area are simply overwhelmed in part due to numbers. Its getting worse and worse, yes there is underinvestment and corporate greed-mismanagement but no one has suggested the human numbers involved in the mess. Why isn't immigration and the numbers involved never spoken about?

Very simple: Reorganizational bankruptcy --> Shareholders go to zero --> bondholders take a haircut (if they get anything at all) --> a new "regulation" effectively makes anyone other than a gov't agency acquiring the bankrupt assets impossible --> Thames Water II emerges from bankruptcy without the BS.... voila!

Limited liability says no. Which is why we should get rid of limited liability.

Quite extremely ignorant for an ex minister of whatbthe LAW said.... the debholder kept the assets when the company go bankrupt .... this is what happen wehn the government does not allow incrase of payments and demand too much in investments.... billions of debt and shareholders money was used to i prove the infrastructure

and they calim these Companies are being run by experts LOL

Thatchers legacy ,

what did they use the debt for? where is the money?

Its seems like the privatization of essential infrastructure like water has not been in the British public's best interest. Make them pay the debts and take it back to public ownership. Maybe we could get the countries best minds to operate nationalized water instead of taking positions in finance

So the privatisation model has failed. Who would have thought it.

Ask for a report on the water see how dirty it is

Tottally right these private firms just borrowed the crap out of it until the goverment step in.

Sadly this isnt how the world works, the house of lords will step in and protect their pals finances...

Privatisation was always about putting company directors and shareholders first. The customers were merely cash cows.

I know someone Very close family Has 12 bedrooms with bathroom suite 3 washing machine They had a letter from there water company Use only one bathroom suite?? Watching in the water meter His water bill this year 14 thousands With swimming pool

If it comes to it, does anyone really believe the British tax payer won't be left with the debt? I mean, our politicians are super competent, aren't they.

Julie Hartley-Brewer arguing for a State Run Not for profit model. Where were you when it was privatised?

It should never had been privatised ! Yet they still get financial help and that is wrong ! F the owners !

Come on you really think that they will have to pay it themselves, the tax payer will have to bail them out while the shareholders will still get their money

why should we pay we never had the money, the pigs had that

In less than three decades time the water infrastructure of the water networks will need a total up grade at a cost of at least two trillion. Who pays ?

Julia should let people answer the questions instead of butting in constantly 🙄

Facts are these owners didnt load the debt or make billions since they bought the company, the previous owners did. The debt levels are also in accordance with the regulations. The debt is Thames water debt and not the shareholders debt and its likely the lenders took the companies assets as security. Not treating the lenders in accordance with the law will result in all British debt becoming more expensive because the risk increases. This is the legal and commercial reality and not the morality of the situation. It was wrong to privatise without introducing competition. It was wrong that they were able to gamble on the interest rate. This is a failure to regulate.

is the debt secured or unsecured?

HMRC are the lead creditor…. If the Gov has to bail out Thames then HMRC should take the assets and leave the shareholders to take the haircut / seek redress from their technical and financial advisors… they paid good money to advisors who assured them that Thames was a good investment they need to sue them and Mcquarie…

Thames Water, (& any other company in this situation) Should be stripped of ALL it's assets, and the Directors & Shareholders who made themselves rich by creating it MUST be forced to repay every single penny of the debt. They have had the good times, now, welcome to the (self created) bad times ! Because water is an essential service, yet again the beleagued taxpayers will have to pay up ! THIS IS WRONG IN SO MANY WAYS !

Seems like businesses dont have to worry about poor management decisions or bad investments. There will always be a return for those at the top

The UK people are stupid. Privatizing public utilities without strict regulation will lead to this so the UK folks should stop complaining. I would be looking at the other water private companies quickly. Probably in same condition.

Make the Director’s repay there failed bonus and make the shareholders pay the debt they took the profit. Never ever should public taxes should be given to private company’s.THAT IS THEFT but they don5 care about that. This so called expert said very little.

So when water was nationalised there were still issues were there? It needed better management then. These private corporations and foreign governments are using our national infrastructure as a cash register, or a slush fund to boost their coffers. Asset-stripping on a national scale. More taxpayer investment goes in to put things right, or even just to prop the company up (a greater sum than when it was nationalised) and yet these corporate cowboys still walk away with a bundle when the companies need bailing out. It's exactly the same with the railways. And government ministers and senior civil servants who preside over these failings and who implemented the scheme in the first place always seem to be rather well looked after when they leave office. Vulture capitalism at it's very worst.

The richest place can save itself, not to take the government's funds. London takes all the advantages most of the time. Such as lots of huge infrastructure，but NE people just humble wish a bigger swimming pool or a library . When government proposed to decrease children education fund, in London every child reduce £5， in Durham every child reduce £20.

Wales and England are the only countries in the world where the sewage and water systems are privatised and not owned by the public. To make matters worse, the British sewage and water systems are foreign owned by investment companies with shareholders who wants a yearly profit. Nothing significant in the UK is owned by Brits, it's a very vulnerable situation

Not only are the trunks not on but the swimmers are covered in sewage!

Unbelievable Am worried I can't swim Street wise TAL......

SPOT ON.

Its the energy bills that have crippled Thames Waters operating exspense. Ashford common water works used to be 18m pounds per year pre covid, now its looking at best part of 100m a year electricity bills. Thats withought the Bank of England raising interest rates every month for 18 months in a row..... this is what the Ukraine war and its supporters have done to british companies. Energy is what drives every cost in the Uk.

We bailed out the banks so it’s going happen again

Angela Knight talks absolute tosh, it took a mere six years from privatisation for the managers of Yorkshire Water to run the company in to the ground and get extremely wealth at the same time. I remember the water shortage of 95 in a county famous for its rainy days . The sell off of national assets has been a complete failure, If the water companies were still a national asset they would be in a lot better condition today than they are.

dividends can only be paid from profits. you can't borrow money to pay a dividend unless there's been a profit. you can borrow money this year to pay a dividend on a profit from last year, and the rules go back a few more years beyond that i believe. i don't think thames water are currently paying a dividend, no doubt they'll restart as soon as the media interest dies down

The owners must be laughing now

Get the money off the owners and share holders of the company weather old or new also isn't our water dirty hence why we filter it

Simple solution -lbail them out and require them to.halt all dividends until the bail out and the total debt is repaid including interest in the loan That way supply is secured and at zero cost to taxpayers ..

Another head of a utility company with no knowledge of engineering ability, what is the hell going and the question of hiring a ex off watt regulator is a disgrace.

Correct.

The consumer WILL be lumbered with the debt AND they will as always blame it on Covid and Ukraine conflict.

Shareholders take a hit not the tax payer

Great idea

only thames? and the rest m8

shareholders took there bonuses they should pay the debt

Everything is done on the cheap ensuring the worst possible service for the highest possible price to make money for the already extremely wealthy, it's the same with the trains. Privatisation has ensured that everything in this country is third rate.

The cost of bailing out the water company should be deducted from the value and the shareholders reimbursed with the balance, taking them back into public ownership. If the remain as monopoly companies there should be legislation that prohibits excessive salaries, bonuses and dividends until they are viable.

I bet the bonuses got paid every year!

Its time they started doing thier jobs instead of giving all the profits to shareholders

let them pay not the taxpayers

Lets not forget it was the Tory sell off of our utilities which let this happen! Grrr

They were not privatised to avoid competing for public funds but to relieve the government of responsibility for running the business.

Thatchers legacy period.

Corruption,

No the government isn't taking on the debt the tax payer is

No investment we have already paid look at the cost now this is a failure conservative government failure

UK sinking like the Titanic It all over Nothing left Ps... My problem was I prayed to much RAIN 🌧️ Street wise TAL........

Privatisation worked for the likes of British Airways because, if you don't like British Airways, you can now use a different airline, or, if you have the capital, you can set up your own airline, as a few people did. So you have competition which ensures people get a better service. None of this applies to the water industry.

NO TAX PAYERS MONEY SHOULD BE USED TO BAIL THESE PRIVATE COMPANIES!!!@ THEY HAVE HAD THE MONEY IN LOANS, SO SHOULD BE LEFT WITH THE DEBT!!@

I font pay there bills They refused to put in a water meter..4 times they came to pput a meter in and they made excuses

Make the greedy shareholders pay and nationalise it

Thames water is a scam