Beleaguered Thames Water pushes to secure £3bn lifeline

Thames Water is racing to secure a £3bn lifeline as the struggling water company battles for financial survival.

- Anna Isaac Jack Simpson

The fresh funds are meant to act as a "liquidity bridge" to "stabilise the business" and give it time to secure long-term investment, its chief executive, Chris Weston, said yesterday. It will further balloon its operating company's debt pile, taking it to £17.9bn by March next year, Alastair Cochran, Thames's chief financial officer, said.

In a signal of shaky market confidence in the company, the new debt is expected to come with double the borrowing costs Thames had previously secured from markets. The company said the yield on its new debt of about 15% was in line with other transactions "of this nature".

Britain's biggest water company revealed yesterday that it was working on a plan with creditors to secure an initial £1.5bn of new money, enough to allow it to operate until October 2025.

A further £1.5bn would be made available, across two tranches of £750m, if Thames Water makes an appeal to the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) over the industry regulator Ofwat's final decision on how much water companies can increase bills over five years.