The Government is on stand-by to step in should struggling utility Thames Water collapse.
Reports emerged this week that the company needs more money to survive. It is thought to be in the red to the tune of £13.8 billion, a figure that is around £840 million higher than six months earlier.
The company’s net debt has grown from just under £11 billion in 2018. Much of the debt was added when Thames Water was owned by Macquarie, the massive Australian investor.
In December 2005, before Macquarie bought the utility, Thames Water’s net debt was just £2.4 billion. When Macquarie sold it around a decade later, the debt pile had ballooned to more than £10 billion.
Thames Water had no debt when it was privatised by Margaret Thatcher in 1989.
Who actually owns Thames Water?
Through a series of holding companies, Thames Water is co-owned by a series of pension funds and foreign governments.
The biggest single shareholder is the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System, which holds around 32 per cent of the shares. Another pension fund, the UK-based Universities Superannuation Scheme, holds another 20 per cent.
Around 10 per cent of the shares are owned by a subsidiary of the Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund, which is owned by the Abu Dhabi Government, and China’s sovereign wealth fund owns a little under 9 per cent.
“Making foreign corporations rich”
Appearing on BBC Question Time last month, Ash Sarkar explained why water companies are in desperate need to be renationalised.
Watch her comments in full below:
Related: Andy McDonald asks Sainsbury’s to justify CEO pay – they can’t