Thames Water

Yes of course - to maximise the return on capital. See also: asset strip. The private sector is not going to get involved in anything unless there's a decent return.

In my limited experience 'decent' starts at c.30%, and builds depending on the risk. Stiff regulation increases risk, which deters investment. So investors need some sort of handle on the regulators. It may be that the rot stops with Thames, but I doubt it.

BULLSHIT.

So it doesn't say, "Equinor ASA (formerly Statoil and StatoilHydro) is a Norwegian state-owned multinational energy company headquartered in Stavanger."

Must be my bad then.

Yes, your link doesn't say, "Equinor ASA (formerly Statoil and StatoilHydro) is a Norwegian state-owned multinational energy company headquartered in Stavanger".

Does it?

Pity that it also says that it is a publicly listed company with the state with 67% of the shareholding, you pathetic excuse for a bullshit artist.

I heard this being discussed on R4 this morning. The suggestion was that the Government would require to take on the debt. Why? If a company goes into liquidation, the creditors can form an orderly queue to get so many pence in the pound. Typically, the new company buys the assets only and starts debt free. (I suppose the answer is probably that the debts are secured against the assets, but does anyone know?)

I thought one of the article posted did suggest that there were charges on various assets from some of the 'secured' loans. The criminal aspect of all this is that OFWAT gave its blessing to all these shenanigans.

Given those assets are needed to perform their water and sewerage duties I'm not sure what would happen if they should be sold or what their market value would be? It would also depend on niceties like planning permission for an alternate use would hopefully be refused.

As you say the government would normally have to pick up the tab, but that would only be at max the market value of the asset a charge is held on.

The situation is a mess.

The moment you nationalise anything the Unions pile in to ensure the company is held to ransom whilst their members idle away their hours on obscene salaries, or strike to order from Moscow.

Watchdogs over private companies are the best of a bad lot so far.

Why do you say the government would normally have to pick up the tab? Normally, when a company goes into administration/liquidation the shareholders and the creditors are the ones who lose out. The administrator will attempt to sell the company as a 'going concern' but if this is not possible will sell the assets.

Indeed.

And the assets of a water company are its pipes, aquifers, rivers and reservoirs , its sewage plants and its monopoly on its customer base. Someone has to asses those, the money that needs to be invested to satisfy the customer base and what that is going to cost in interest charges, and tell the receiver that it will purchase the assets for a penny if its allowed to charge its customers what it will take to service the debts it will have to incur to sort the mess out. And water is one of those things that is utterly stressed by population growth which is these days *all* immigrants and their families.

In South Africa, they simply cannot supply the burgeoning populations with water *at all* without investing money that no one has in sewage treatment plants to recycle sewage back into fresh water, for example.

In the articles I have posted URLs for, it shows that most water companies, Thames included sold their shares back to the company in return for loans. This loans were secured on assets such as buildings and other infrastructure. Typically in an area where brown building land is scarce and expensive.

So yes the shareholder that are left will lose everything. And unsecured creditors.

But what are you going to do regarding secured debt with charges on buildings and other infrastructure? They are now effectively owned by the secured creditors.

It is not as simple as saying "creditors are the ones who lose out". Smart ones will do the best so they don't lose out, even if it all goes pear shaped.

Ok, so where's the new sewerage treatment works going to go?

That isnt even possible.

That's far from clear.

In reality that isnt even possible with a water and sewer operation.

That last isnt possible with a water and sewer operation.

No need for one, because the original cannot legally be sold.

Not 'indeed' at all. This is an essential public utility where you can't just let markets rip and sell the silver.

That is the whole* point - the debt. Never mind for a moment how it arose -

Nonsense. Lower birth rates and an aging population are major factors. As is irresponsible use of the water we all have access to.

Don't know the details but I'd bet the IMF and privatisation-strings-attached is part of the reason for that

In what way? What other security is there? Or are you suggesting the loans were not secured on anything other than the reputation of the company?(!).

Not nonsense. Lower birth rates *reduce* the stress and only immigrant families have high birth rates. We have reached the point where, like India, more people results in more poverty in this country,

Er no. The reason is simple. Government corruption. Public money ends up in private hands, same as Russia, the EU the UK. Only difference is they don't bother to hide it, in Africa

Its been done. Intellectual property as security, for example...

Your repeated references to loans secured against assets seem to overlook the fact that (and I quote from Thames' prospectus in 2020) "The vast majority of TWUL’s assets by value are tangible property which is Protected Land and cannot therefore be effectively secured."

I mention this only because ISTR confessing in the past to working in a minor way on a marginal bit of water privatisation and, while there was much wrong with it, the people running it weren't the sort of total f****ng idiot who would leave the companies free to flog off or put in hock the essential infrastructure.

Future earnings. People are not going to give up buying water.

The problem with a regulated private entity is how much profit to allow it to make - screw it too hard and it skimps on maintenance, screws out as much profit as it can and walks away...