Keir Starmer at it again..

[Templeton Peck]

England, Wales and Chile are the only countries with fully privatised water.

 

[Paddingtonwolf]

They could put them into special administration to avoid that. Not that debt is an issue to the UK govt anyway.

so what about the companies they owe money to that might go bust? that okay in utopia?

 

[Templeton Peck]

so what about the companies they owe money to that might go bust? that okay in utopia?

Haircuts

 

[Paddingtonwolf]

you NEVER answer a point like that. Ever.

 

[Templeton Peck]

Also, the people they owe money to will be just fine.

 

[Tredman]

England, Wales and Chile are the only countries with fully privatised water.

There are many which are privately operated though.

Also worth comparing performance of UK water companies with publicly owned companies too.

 

[AndyWolves]

Isn't the debt mainly to investors? Surely this is a case of "investments may go down as well as up", this is how capitalism works.

Pension funds need protecting, but then they should be doing proper risk management anyway - that's why the fund managers take charges from the funds they're managing.

 

[Tredman]

Mostly pension funds I think - there is a big difference between 'investments may go up and may go down' vs 'fuck you we now own your assets'

 

[AndyWolves]

Surely that's the risk of investing in any private company that runs at a 1.5b loss and whose assets pretty much equal their debts?

If I was investing / lending I'd be concerned about my exposure to a company in that condition

 

[Wilf Wolf]

Whilst collectively the amount of Thames Water shares owned by pension funds might be significant I’d be surprised if taking them into public ownership with no compensation would register more than a blip on the assets of any single pension fund and if it did some fund managers need sacking.

 

[Tredman]

Once again Thames Water is not representative of the whole water industry. You'd have thought that a forum dedicated to a provincial football team would be less London-centric.

 

[AndyWolves]

I think pay even 1% of a customers bill towards interest on debt / dividend payments for a necessity is wrong.

 

[Wilf Wolf]

Labour’s pledge to cut storm sewage discharges by 50% by 2030 sadly shows a complete lack of understanding of how these discharges occur. You can’t just close overflows as all you get is backing up in the system and discharges elsewhere, be it manholes in the street or even backing up into homes. You can’t easily exclude significant amounts of rainfall as that costs millions. You can improve the reliability and capacity of pumps and you can clean sewers to allow more flow to pass forward, both of which will reduce flows backing up and thus reaching the point of overflowing. This might make a difference in a few cases but the others will take large engineering solutions which are both costly and take a lot of time to conclude.

 

[Wilf Wolf]

Once again Thames Water is not representative of the whole water industry. You'd have thought that a forum dedicated to a provincial football team would be less London-centric.

I think the focus is on Thames as they have a dreadful record of storm discharges whilst also carrying huge amounts of debt.

 

[AndyWolves]

I think the focus is on Thames as they have a dreadful record of storm discharges whilst also carrying huge amounts of debt.

Im pretty sure most companies are geared beyond ofwats recommendations, which increases costs for consumers for absolutely nothing in return.

 

[Tredman]

Im pretty sure most companies are geared beyond ofwats recommendations, which increases costs for consumers for absolutely nothing in return.

Only Thames. None of them voluntarily go beyond the gearing targets as it means no dividends.

 

[Wilf Wolf]

Im pretty sure most companies are geared beyond ofwats recommendations, which increases costs for consumers for absolutely nothing in return.

Quite probably, but Thames are by far the biggest clusterfuck hence the debate has often been about them.

 

[Tredman]

Labour’s pledge to cut storm sewage discharges by 50% by 2030 sadly shows a complete lack of understanding of how these discharges occur. You can’t just close overflows as all you get is backing up in the system and discharges elsewhere, be it manholes in the street or even backing up into homes. You can’t easily exclude significant amounts of rainfall as that costs millions. You can improve the reliability and capacity of pumps and you can clean sewers to allow more flow to pass forward, both of which will reduce flows backing up and thus reaching the point of overflowing. This might make a difference in a few cases but the others will take large engineering solutions which are both costly and take a lot of time to conclude.

It'll be achieved easily as all the spending on CSO spills reductions is clustered at the back end of the AMP. The current targets are pretty much the same, if not more stringent.

 

[AndyWolves]

Only Thames. None of them voluntarily go beyond the gearing targets as it means no dividends.

Ofwat can allow dividends to be paid if over 60%, and intercompany dividends have been paid regardless

And on Ofwats own website a bit chunk of water companies are north of 60%

Let's hope Ofwat start to show some teeth

 

[Kenny]

Let's hope Ofwat start to show some teeth

Starmer is knocking those teeth out