Britain's biggest water supplier said yesterday that shareholders had refused to provide £500m of emergency funding due this week to secure its short-term cashflow.
The company, which has £18bn of debts, could be plunged into a government-handled administration that would see it temporarily renationalised if it cannot secure fresh funding from new or existing sources.
It has been lobbying the industry regulator, Ofwat, to increase bills by 40%, pay lower fines for breaches such as sewage dumping and to be allowed to pay out dividends. The watchdog has been examining the company's business plan for 20252030, and Thames said Ofwat's initial assessments made the company "uninvestible" for shareholders.
However, in words understood to reflect the view in Downing Street, the communities secretary, Michael Gove, described the leadership of Thames as a "disgrace" and said the company should not pass on the cost to households in the form of higher bills.
Gove said the company had acted in an "arrogant way towards the consumers who pay their bills", adding: "I think for years now we have seen customers of Thames Water taken advantage of by successive management teams that have been taking out profits and not investing as they should have been."
The government has assembled a team, under the banner of Project Timber, to draw up contingency plans to rescue Thames. However, industry opinion is split on how grave the utility's financial situation is.
The GMB union, which represents many Thames workers, accused its shareholders of "essentially blackmailing" customers and Ofwat to accept its demands.
An industry source said Thames's announcement was "a deliberate attempt to get Ofwat to buckle".
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة March 29, 2024 من The Guardian.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
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هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة March 29, 2024 من The Guardian.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
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