Der Einsturz des Thames Water könnte eine Schuldenkrise im Truss-Stil auslösen, befürchten Beamte von Whitehall
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/apr/28/thames-water-collapse-borrowing-whitehall-uk-finances-bonds-liz-truss?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
Von ClassicFlavour
12 Comments
Shoring up confidence in lending to the UK, or making sure that mates attending an expensive dinner don’t end up out of pocket?
All the talk about making sure it’s done before the election suggests the latter to me.
>Earlier this month, the Guardian revealed details of government contingency plans, known as Project Timber, to renationalise Thames via a special administration. **This could lead to the bulk of its £15bn of debt being moved on to the government’s balance sheet.**
No. If you dissolve Thames Water the debt should be wiped out.
The public purse should not be used to cover the debt TW accumulated. This is effectively plugging the huge dividends already extracted by shareholders.
Using public money to cover the private debts of Thames Water should be considered corporate fraud against the state and theft of public money. We should not be allowing companies to borrow like this to line their pockets, while providing a poor service (many millions of liters of water lost a day and hundreds of dry day expulsions of waste into water courses), then turn to the public purse to pay their debts.
The government absolutely nationalise water if they’re going to act like this, but they shouldn’t be compensated for it, nor should we cover their debts. The *whole point* of being a private company is that the state doesn’t have any liability for the costs or interest in the profits of providing the service.
Problem is a ton of public sector pensions are tied up in thames water, the government is in a bad position and can’t let the debt be wiped out without a catastrophe elsewhere in the economy.
Treat the shareholders like Lloyds names company turns a profit you get something, if not time to pay up, so what if little Johny has to go to a comprehensive, we should all share the same fate, meritocracy prevail
Excellent, will they be offering the same deal to any company in administration? I lost 11,000 due to a business collapsing owing me money…which minister do I speak to about moving that debt to the government spreadsheet too?
The whole story is going to be another massive scandal but this title and general theme of the article is scaremongering. It says the lenders will lose out on 40% meaning the government will only take on 9bn of the debt. The idea 9bn is enough to cause a financial crisis is nonsense.
Truss mainly failed not because of the size of the tax cuts but because she spooked the markets which caused a spiral effect far greater than the 45bn in intended borrowing.
This, if anything, will be a good sign to the market as it’s basically the government picking up the cost of bad investments in the private sector.
Privatised profits and nationalised losses.
When are we gonna fucking wake up?
Privitise the profits and socialise the losses…
Also read they were going to give 2bn£ t to share holders before going under.
Criminals
They probably want to nationalise it while the Tories are still in charge because Labour won’t let them put the debt onto the taxpayer.
The existing investors either need to cover the debt or lose 100% of their investment. As for the debt itself that should just be treated like any other debt issued to a bankrupt company. A receiver can value the assets it wants, the government can pay out that much to be shared among the creditors and then the government owns everything as a national utility.
Which is what a water company should always have been really. When I flush my toilet I can, sadly, only send it to one place. I can’t decide that Thames Water is polluting rivers with the stuff so I’ll send it to Tesco water (or whatever) instead. There is no choice. Therefore no benefit in privatisation.
This is a rather obvious ploy to protect the shareholders and creditors at the expense of the public. If they lose 40% in a “haircut”, they still get to keep 60%. These are most of the same people who have benefitted from TW’s outrageous payouts as the system fell to pieces. The comparison of a failure of this business with the Truss/Kwarteng disaster is strained and unpersuasive.