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Is Thames Water about to collapse?

I dunno, tbh, but it's bloody tough for retired people relying on their pension fund having made a sensible investment. And those retired people aren't all rich gits.

Suspect they’ve already written the value of this down quite a lot.

The USS is worth ~90 bn quid

Alex
 
Done, it would be nice if water companies filtered the shit out before dumping waste in the sea and rivers, too.
 
You'd think the response would be "I agree with you mate, here's the number of my manager please tell them what you think" but you'd also think they'd get the sack for doing something like that.
 
Because harassing the frontline workers who are trying to fix things and have zero budget control is really going to help. Honestly the British public sometimes ...

it's not just water workers, it's retail staff, social services and even hospital workers. Middle Q is on maternity leave from A&E at the moment but she reckons people getting shouty and even physical with the staff there is all too common.
 
I suspect that a fair proportion of the abuse from the public comes from motorists when utility companies dig up roads and cause jams tbh.

I came across various people moaning about the chaos caused when gas mains were being updated around here, I always asked if they would be happier with an ever increasing risk of gas explosions, that tended to shut them up.
 
I came across various people moaning about the chaos caused when gas mains were being updated around here, I always asked if they would be happier with an ever increasing risk of gas explosions, that tended to shut them up.
Then they would complain about someone doing roadworks whilst they fill in the hole from the explosion
 
You'd think the response would be "I agree with you mate, here's the number of my manager please tell them what you think" but you'd also think they'd get the sack for doing something like that.

Deffo would - and remember the lads out digging holes and fixing pipes have gone through loads of TUPE transfers from one contractor to another, each time their T & Cs cut and protections reduced.

(For balance, when Thames has a significant Direct Labour Organisation staff, it was an absolute carve-up of friends and relatives, many getting paid for doing virtually nothing, while contractors were employed to do the actual work. But at least the lads doing the work were pretty well paid, though they did long hours of back-breaking work.)
 
I dunno, tbh, but it's bloody tough for retired people relying on their pension fund having made a sensible investment. And those retired people aren't all rich gits.

It's tough for a lot of people when their water bills go up by 50% overnight.

No pensioner is going to lose their income because their pension fund has taken a hit. Blackmailing old folk is not a sensible way to leverage public policy.
 
You'd think the response would be "I agree with you mate, here's the number of my manager please tell them what you think" but you'd also think they'd get the sack for doing something like that.

Workers shouldn't be having to improvise a witty and politically coherent response to people getting up in their face giving them shit for doing their jobs.

That being said I do give South West Water's social media drones a hard time when their ads pop up on facebook. But defending complete bullshit like, 'we're investing more than ever' and, 'we only use overflows in an emergency' is their actual job, a job which if they didn't do it at all there might be more money for fixing leaks and stuff.
 
Those bits not owned by British pension funds if it goes completely tits up then :thumbs:
I don't think much at all is directly owned by British pension funds. Obviously a fair few may well have piled into infrastructural products put up by the asset management corporations that include Kemble in their portfolios but, according to Wiki, the majority holdings are with foreign based investment corporations:

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I don't think much at all is directly owned by British pension funds. Obviously a fair few may well have piled into infrastructural products put up by the asset management corporations that include Kemble in their portfolios but, according to Wiki, the majority holdings are with foreign based investment corporations:

View attachment 418549

USS is British university employees.

Alex
 
I suspect that a fair proportion of the abuse from the public comes from motorists when utility companies dig up roads and cause jams tbh.

Yes, but the same people would complain if noisy works were allowed 24hrs a day. As ever, nothing is as simple as to those who don't know. As an example, not defending Thames Water, but an example for any water company, if they need to shut a water main off, there are statutory periods to inform people they will have no water for x hours. When there is a visible leak or systems show a loss water or pressure, someone goes out to ascertain where it is. If the local authority accepts it is emergency, they'll get a permit to set up and dig where they think it is. It might be there, or might have just found the path of least resistance. Let's assume the leak is found, but you need to shut down the main to effect the repair, so give notice to customers their water is going off. While the required notice period is served, the hole is open, temporary traffic lights are up and no visible work is happening (while people are ordering the right size collar to cover and stop the leak in an office elsewhere). The collar turns out to a 3 day delivery so the notice to shut the water main is served again when it arrives. Then the repair happens, and the main is tuned back. But now it's 5pm, and as the water is back on, the local authority considers the emergency is over. The backfilling of the hole and the reinstatement of the road surface must be done in normal working hours, as it non-emergency noisy works. So, now the hole is open, with no work until 8am the next day. It's a TfL road so their requirements to grant you a permit will require the concrete in the penulimate layer is required to cure for 3 days before the final road surface is layed, which then needs to stay barriered off until it sets.

The workers comply with all the above while people call them lazy when a hole is open and no visible work is happening. And all the while if happens again and again as more piecemeal repairs are needed as shareholders asset-strip and don't invest in strategic improvements. It's not the lads with the shovels, leave them alone.
 
It's tough for a lot of people when their water bills go up by 50% overnight.

No pensioner is going to lose their income because their pension fund has taken a hit. Blackmailing old folk is not a sensible way to leverage public policy.
What is the situation where a major company which has been heavily invested in by a pension fund goes bust?

My only non-government related pension is from Roche, but they must invest the fund soewhere.
 
You'd think the response would be "I agree with you mate, here's the number of my manager please tell them what you think" but you'd also think they'd get the sack for doing something like that.

I had a manager that I hated, it was mutual. If I had a really pissed off customer, I used to ask them for an E-mail address, and E-mail them the managers name and phone number. As the guy was seated ten feet from me, I could hear the calls. :) I always really stressed to the the customer that if they said where they got the number I would get sacked, none of them ever did. This went on for about a month until one of the IT guys paused in passing and said 'Don't'. He didn't like him either. :)
 
What is the situation where a major company which has been heavily invested in by a pension fund goes bust?

Must happen all the time, but the world keeps turning. Pension funds should be invested in lots of different things so their exposure to any one company going south is limited.

The biggest issue with company failures and pensions is for the company's own staff. Because it's somehow a valid cost-cutting strategy to just not bother paying your employer pension contributions. You can keep paying yourself million pound bonuses from a doomed company with a black hole in its pension fund and somehow walk away with no personal liability.
 
I hope they were told that investments could go down as well as up.
The weasel words lie in that last sentence:
Shareholders have not taken a dividend since 2017, though the company has paid internal dividends from the operational business to holding companies to be able to service its debt obligations.
The asset management corporations make sure that they or their finance corporation owners (who lent the £ of their debt mountain) get their cut whatever happens to the ordinary investors/pensioners.
 
Please sign and share:

Cheers, signed, not that I suppose it will do any good. Was chatting to water meter reader the other day who came round last week; I said, oh gawd is this Thames Water? (North London). He said no, it's Affinity Water, but amounts to the same thing as they are just a subsidiary of TW. We went on a bit a shared rant about what a carsey England and Wales have become, services worsened, prices risen, a few fat cats creaming off millions and oh hey guess what, we the f**ing taxpayer will end up paying for Thames Water and other legalised crime groups having been discharging effluence into our waters for 20-30 years. It is is fucking outrageous - I thought after the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race when I understand several rowers become il with e coli, and the head rower, coxsman or whatever said in. a national newspaper "It would be nice if there was less poo in the river".
And he wasn't some crusty anarchist from a squat in Stockwell (not that you can even legally squat any more don't get me fucking started), he was a member of the establishment elite (Oxbridge) so if anyone was gonna be listened to ...

What the actual fuck? When I was a lad in the 1970s we used to go on family holidays to the SE coast and have a swim, no way would I do so now or -if I had kids - would I let them risk the passing turds and e coli...

These fucking criminal cunts, something must be done. What if all of us just stopped paying our water bills and said we are withholding payments until you stop fucking polluting our rivers and seas and not only that, remedy the fucking poisonous noxious effluence you've been pumping into OUR waters.

What would happen? I suppose they'd cut off our water, but what if everyone (well, being realistic, not everyone would but some groups or some streets) said fuck you we're not paying until you sort it out.

Those of us who could afford to could buy bottled water; myself and a neighbour have a water butt out in the communal garden... I'd want to boil it to hell but it could be used, maybe for a shower at least.

These corporate crime fuckers can't get away with this - can they?
 
Via Bloomberg:

The holding company of Thames Water Ltd. says it defaulted after failing to make some interest payments due on its debt.

Kemble Water Finance Limited has sent a formal notice of default to the holders of its £400 million ($505 million) bonds due in 2026 as it didn’t pay interest due on Tuesday on some of its other debt, according to a statement.

Consultants at Alvarez & Marsal are advising the UK water and sewage company as it seeks to start talks with creditors over its debt structure.

The company is requesting creditors not to take any action, so that it can have the stability to explore “all options,” according to the filing. Kemble expects to be able to provide a further update in the coming weeks.
 
Via Bloomberg:

The holding company of Thames Water Ltd. says it defaulted after failing to make some interest payments due on its debt.

Kemble Water Finance Limited has sent a formal notice of default to the holders of its £400 million ($505 million) bonds due in 2026 as it didn’t pay interest due on Tuesday on some of its other debt, according to a statement.

Consultants at Alvarez & Marsal are advising the UK water and sewage company as it seeks to start talks with creditors over its debt structure.

The company is requesting creditors not to take any action, so that it can have the stability to explore “all options,” according to the filing. Kemble expects to be able to provide a further update in the coming weeks.
Yep, and the FT nails the reason for Government timidity; the entities are too 'big' (important) to fail and the system is too entrenched to rock the boat. Just so fucked.

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