GB News' Liam Halligan explains why Thames Water have amassed a £14 BILLION debt pile 

The UK should have barred other governments buying into our 'privatised' utilities.

I bet you any money the investors don't lose their money, the taxpayer will end up paying the £14bn debt. We're being robbed.

What is offwat doing allowing 14 billion in debt whilst paying massive dividends!!!

All utilities should be UK owned. 70% are not, no wonder we have problems.

WHY SHOULD WE THE TAXPAYER BAIL THEM OUT WHEN THE SHARE HOLDERS GET A PAY OUT AND TOP MANAGEMENT HAVE THERE SNOUTS IN THE TROUGH

If people haven't yet woken up to what's going on here by now, what this means is that these companies are private in the good times and public in the bad. Much as the banks were in 2008. Profits are privatised and losses are socialised and nobody YET seems to have any objections to this. Hence it continues.

When I was just 18 I was in the backroom admin of a stockbrokers and helping to get ready for the float and and all the allocation with stock and I remember thinking ... How can you privatise water that comes through your pipes? I thought water was something that was a given and not morally right to hijack and a basic human right to have water and shouldn't be given to people to profit from. But I was young and the new boy, so I just went with the frenzy B.S. and felt like the idiot who didn't get it in my mind ! Many things were spawned in those years of Thatcherism and I think if I have learnt anything it is not to vote for anyone that grinds with your values. I was a tory through and trough. Now no party has the integrity I am looking for and would entrust my life too, because now it is all falling apart because of these short term immoral players that can't keep their hands out of our wallets and can't keep their dicks in their trousers either.

if these sovereign funds are joint owners they have plenty of money to service their debts. they did it with Eurostar and the French Government when that was on the brink of collapse

The whole point in privatisation, so we were told at the time, was to raise money to update victorian infrastructure, what actually appears to have happened is the money effectively got stolen and the infrastructure is still a mess.

And , of course, the population of London has increased dramatically over the last few years. But, of course we will be told nothing about that.

Completely disgusting behaviour our water our rivers ..... reservoirs foreign owned ... because of our dodgy governments

They pay massive salaries and bonuses to directors and massive dividends for foreign shareholders while simultaneously dumping sewage and imposing hosepipe bans. The company must be bankrupt and wound up. What have OFWAT done and the minister been doing? Nothing.

Let it go bust so the shareholders get phuque all

Infrastructure should never be in private hands. Period

it would have been useful if Liam had explained WHY Thames Water has accrued £billions of debt

Who gave the order not to treat the sewage, and dump it into our rivers & seas.

Shameful. I'm no lefty, but for what reason is the UKs' Water, in private hands? This, of all things, should be owned and run by the State.

This is due to bad management over decades. The first duty should have been to manage a schedule of improvements as part of operating costs that had first call on profits and share holders paid once that money was set aside every financial year.

Greed Greed Greed and more Greed, this is the result, we're all guilty of it.

MHit 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

No mention there of poor management by people who are paid millions to " manage" . This debt just didn't happen the other day , just out of curiousity, any of the leaders of Thames Water got experience of running a company like this...😢

Who sold them off? Can you change supplier? Privatise the assets and get us to pay.

That is how business operate now. Get the company assets value. Borrow double the value in an era of cheap debt. Get a tax advantage from the interest payments. Dont pay the staff. Don't invest in infrastructure. Declare whopping dividends and bonuses out of the vast borrowings. Water companies owe £65 billion. This debt cannot be paid back other than by us as consumers or taxpayers. Remember the Tories designed and encouraged asset stripping and greedy profiteering

This is just another case of senior management pillaging the company's tangible cash/current assets, year by year by year - and replacing them with debt, until the debt mountain gets too big to service.... Execs have been doing this for generations, and ordinary workers and smaller investors are the one's who'll end up paying the price.

don't need to be a rocket scientist.. successive governments and their poor attempt at regulation and poor oversight

Stop paying your water bill till this is sorted it's always the paying people who get hit with higher bills while the shareholders get bigger bonus

Nationalised risk, privatised profit...sounds like a good business plan, assuming you care nothing for society.

People like me won't sign a contract and won't pay them a penny lol.

I don't see one feature on the French riots here on GB news??

The biggest problem for water companies is net zero bull shit and too many people in the bloody country but never mind we’re helping Ukraine

If the debts of all privatised utilities, railways, councils, academy trusts, NHS trusts were pulled nack i to the National debt we'd be technically bankrupt. Adding another £1.2 trillion to the £2.7 trillion we already have. Oh ,and the £225 billion of student debt, £835 billion of QE, £110 billion of PFI......

Give foreign people who have not paid in money and pay it from taxes - sounds very familiar

The share holders need to pay up! 💰💰💰

Puts pay to the notion that the private sector can run a utility better than the public sector when the product is a natural regional monopoly

Just sell it back to the Public for £1 ( As the Government has done on numerous occasions for their donors ) and give the shareholders nothing, they took a gamble and made billions in divdends , now the chickens have come home to roost

One thing is for certain, the shareholders will not lose, they take the profits, the taxpayers will be left to pick up the shit, literally.

EXACTLY the same thing on the railways

Interesting how GB probably agrees about companies being privatised anyway 🤷‍♂️

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

Remember when public utilities balanced the books and just provided......utilities.

Where was Ofwat when this was going on. Asleep at the wheel with Andrew Bailey in the Bank of England. Absolutely disgraceful. The tax payers should not have pay for this. The British Government need to have a backbone and force the owners to respect their contractual obligations.

The problem is not the debt to the investors as they have done very well. The problem is the people who require water and clean waste streams .

When I was young these debt piles were unheard of, maximum liquidity was kept down to 70%. Nowadays most companies seem to run at 90% or more - I've never thought it was a good idea.

-14 billion why pay bonuses ??????

Good Morning Water Signs! Lundi 3 Juillet 2023. GMT: 07.40.

I say let it go bankrupt. Then with taxpayers money start it again

The people who own Thames water don't really give a shit as long as they get there money.

Get the owners and shareholders to pay for it

Canada can easily ship a few super tankers of potable water to our UK brethren. Prayers

Are the people running big businesses, banks and governments so uninformed about economics they don't understand interest rates, bond values or the need to manage these matters (among others). It seems that all politicians are PPE graduates (with very little "E" other than Keynsian stuff), PR, lobbying etc. Similarly the BoE and big business. I suggest it is overdue to actually train people to do the jobs that need doing and to select the best people instead of chosing according to ideology, colour and who they are sponsored by in politics. I was waiting for a car to be serviced this morning and something called Channel 5 was on a TV there. They had a pig ignorant commentator claim that £14 billion had been taken by owners and made other disobliging comments. The presenter enthusiastically welcomed the comments. There was no alternative story given. Is it a surprise the left is winning over younger people when no one explains and defends capitalism. However badly this business has managed its debt, it will be shareholders who suffer the fall out (unless some numpty politician bails them out or nationalises them!!).

you could see this coming amile away...when thatcher privatised the water industry there is only one question why it took so long ,,,,the water companies have been covering up for years.

Thankfully I live in Wales and have a Private bore supply ✌️

These utility companies should never have been sold, for a start it wasn't there's to sell in the first place it's criminal what's happened.

one word sums the private water companies......GREED

We have 12 bedroom 12 bathroom suite 4 washing machine But I don't have a swimming pool Have a hot tub for 8 people My water bill this year 14,, thousands pounds If only my water company can stop Wasting water We are only using one bathroom for now Street wise TAL....... Ps my gas bill even more expensive 56 radiator 3 boliers 18 thosunds this year Am really scared for this winter coming

Water is a life giving commodity that should never have been privatised

Absolutely it should be the shareholders, they have taken too much out.

The City is cleaning up !

Hope the tax payer does not have to pay them anything.

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?

It was expected (by me) that Brexit would have dominoed onto these issues. Gov (cross party) has ignored this for decades. UU sponsored the local pride weekend .. i mean.. why does UU need to raise awareness of itself? Water companies have a captive market. Trains compete with cars, coaches and planes.water companies have no competition

Because they know tax payers will have to pick up the bill and they get to walk away without a prison sentace that's why. Criminal irrisponsability with no criminal charges.

OFFWAT need to be held to account.

Who the FECK lets a company get that far in *DEBT*

I expect now we will be expected to bail them out, fair enough, we will bail them out, provided its put back,into the public domain, otherwise let the Shear holders bail them out ?.

Monopolies should never be left to private enterprise. With no competition it's a cash cow, even more so if maintenance is pushed back to the future and oversized profits taken now. Government ownership might not be efficient but their mandate is to provide a service, not make a profit.

Probably also got another 5 million people to serve too. Greater water demand, more sewage to deal with, more investment in infrastructure required.

Top man ..

If only those dividends has been invested in updating the Infrastructure. We wouldn't have a Victorian system anymore. thanks thatcher

Dividends, and share buybacks, must only be payable from profits. Change the Law. Only allow a maximum of £100 for "licensing costs" allowed on a Company Tax Return. Change the Law.

The debt holders MUST be made to "take the bath" and the shareholders should either properly fund their company (it is their job / contractual obligation after all) or surrender their shares.

Let it fail, its not hard to see that the whole rational behind the these numerous shareholders allowing the company to pile up so much debt is directly because people would assume that it would be bailed out eventually and if nationalised they get their shares bought off them by the UK. AKA no risk for them, just loads of expenses on the UK. Its need to be left to fail and have other company's buy up its assets and taken on its role. Ideally long term laws and regulations need to be removed or adjusted where necessary to allow for competition which is possible in such an industry its just uncommon. We have the same basic setup with how crap our trains and power networks, they could be done privately but as it currently is we in effect have a system that would be like allowing supermarkets to exist but having the lorrys, vans and warehouses be state owned and the locations of stores be chosen by the state which is obviously a recipe for chaos and isnt in anyway a free market. The current set up is not actual privatisation its just corporatism, its got a state enforced monopoly with no competition and end of the day its owned by the state because of that and due to the level of control the state has over it. Slapping a stick saying privately owned on it and then allowing people to buy shares of it and take a chunk of money off it in exchange is what has happened. Nationalising them would be a step backwards and wouldnt in anyway improve the service or in real terms make it cheaper to run as the costs would just switch over to being everyones tax instead. Let them fail, other companies will pick up the pieces, whats the point of having such a vast welfare state/"saftey net" if we dont allow anything to fail, we may as well just be a communist totally centrally run economy at that point. Forcing them to buy more shares in the company is just kicking the can down the road, so in short the most likely outcome. Btw nationalisation will probably end up happening with it eventually, as actually trying to liberate the industry will be met by vast opposition from the left, special interests who dont want competition to enter their monopoly and most of all its too much effort for the average politician to be bothered to deal with.

Love the Banter!

Privatise the profits; Socialise the Losses.

let Thames water go bust, put all ceo's & directors past & present under investigation to see their pay & bonuses etc & see how much in dividends have been paid. Why pay dividend & huge wages if they cant service their debt?

I always wonder where our pension funds are invested as they don't seem to choose utilities to invest in but foreign companies and governments see the opportunity in what should remain, for national security, utilities owned by British institutions if not the government.

Send in the Bailiffs, that what they do the public

I am all for privatisation, but not without minimum levels of self-funding being in place and ring-fenced reserves. Crazy to have allowed the owners to have run up this level of debt pile....and potentially oblige the taxpayer to foot the bill when things go wrong.

Private profit and public debt. Weren't we sold the idea that these companies would be so much better and efficiently run once they were privatised?

And one of the Brexit so called benefits during the campaign was to deregulate all services and open up Britain to outside investment so all those that pushed Brexit want more Thames Water type services in Britain paying those have invested massive dividends and supply a poorer but more expensive service. Who have gained from Brexit????

Some legacy Mrs T . . Thanks a lot . .

Shareholders should pay for this, it is there fault.

The government must make their shareholders pay not the taxpayer

Debt plus the cost of fixing the leaks and prevent sewage spills.

How the F , charging enough

The government are worried about foreign investors ?

We can thank the Privatisation of national industries across the EU on EU policies . Yet another rrason that Brexit was a good idea. Now all we have to do is repair all the damage that EU membership has done and that will take years .

While profits ..who are consumers ... Now when water is till neck so now remembering the consumers for more ..more and more ..this greed culture will take everyone down

I'm far from in favour of the government controlling everything, but water should never have been privatised.

NO COMPANY PAYING SHAREHOLDERS SHOULD HAVE DEBT !!!!!!!!!

This isn't rocket science, it's the chickens coming home to roost for everyone who has borrowed too much, on the dubious assumption that interest rates would stay ultra low forever!

Absolutely no way customers should pay higher bills to help TW out, we’ve paid our already inflated bills. It seems there’s been money awash to pay owners directors & shareholders in the past but nothing left in the pipes anymore, the gravy train that is water privatisation has just sprung it’s own catastrophic leak. Confiscate the company & leave the 14billion debt to the owners, directors & shareholders to sort out, they’ve had it pretty good over the last 30 years!.

privatise the profits .socialise the losses

Renationalisation= The big earners walk, we foot the bill.

Milked it , took the cash , left it in a shambles , hand it back , taxpayer picks up the bill and pays more . Best go round and take all those owners houses and villa off them

14 billion over how many years block by block please.

Some facts: Tories sold off the nationalised water industry cheaply to their friends. The excuse was that the private sector would invest in modernising the infrastructure better than a public body could do. Where did the proceeds go? The 'Tory's friends' made a killing by selling on and making big profits - they gave some to the Tory Party and collected peerages. The new owners were private equity type businesses. They saw a debt free business, with lots of assets and income from clients who could not move to a competitor. They took massive loans against the assets and income streams and paid all spare cash to themselves in dividends, leaving enough to be able to sell the business on to other by showing how much dividend is being paid. At every stage, there were well known consultants making huge fees advising the owners want to do which was legal but perhaps not ethical. The current owners are the patsies - Governments and institutional owners who believed the sellers and their consultants. This is why you should not vote Tory again. They have wrecked your country. UK public will have to pay for this. This is why you need the EU and their 'meddling intervention' and financial support. UK is about to go bust. Who voted for brexit? Who influenced you? Do you trust them?

Let it collapse ..then let us buy it back for the people

Let it go bust and then the government can take it over for peanuts. No more dividends until the loans are paid off. If the cost for water goes up then surely the public are shareholders also!

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.