Thames Water is struggling to pay its debts, and there is a chance that the British Government will have to step in to take over the business until it stabilizes.
Ofwat has reported, "It (Thames Water) recently received an additional £500m from shareholders and has £4.4bn of cash and committed funding."
There is still a chance that even with this cash influx. It might still go into the temporary (SAR) Special Administration Regime until a new buyer can be found. Then the question has to be asked, who would want to buy a company with £14B in debt with a collapsing infrastructure?
Any company that comes in will leverage the government for breaks or get taxpayer money to help rebuild the infrastructure.
If that happens, who has to pay for it? The taxpayer once again. These water companies were turned public to private in 1989 with no debt and for 34 years, Water Thames and other water companies have accrued so much debt while making significant profits for shareholders. Now we, the taxpayer, might have to pay without ever seeing a pound of that money.
What repercussions will come out of this if it happens? None! The board will probably resign with bonuses they've already gotten for the year and go to another board elsewhere. While the 90-year-old grandmother who can't afford to turn her heat on in the winter will have her taxes go up to help pay for it.
Where is the justice for bad business practices? What laws are in play to protect you and me from the incompetence and greed of huge cooperations? People need to start being locked up.
If you can get locked up in other industries for malpractice or derelict of duty, these laws should be upheld for board members and CEOs.
They shouldn't be able to get their bonuses and run off to other companies to get high positions when they've just burnt another one to the ground.
We need to get our government leaders to stop these things from happening or have laws that protect the people and punish those at fault.