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"The government has begun drawing up contingency plans for the collapse of Thames Water amid growing doubts in Whitehall about the ability of Britain’s biggest water company to service its £14bn debt-pile. Thames Water's announcement follows reports that the UK's privatised water and sewage companies paid £1.4bn in dividends in 2022, up from £540m the previous year." As we discussed before. This is whay happens when you put huge financial burdens on companies tofix the problems you previously had to privatise them for because you couldn't afford to fix said problems and then you levy even more burdens on them. | |||
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"The government has begun drawing up contingency plans for the collapse of Thames Water amid growing doubts in Whitehall about the ability of Britain’s biggest water company to service its £14bn debt-pile. Thames Water's announcement follows reports that the UK's privatised water and sewage companies paid £1.4bn in dividends in 2022, up from £540m the previous year. As we discussed before. This is whay happens when you put huge financial burdens on companies tofix the problems you previously had to privatise them for because you couldn't afford to fix said problems and then you levy even more burdens on them. " The railways receive more govt. subsidies now than ever before. | |||
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"The government has begun drawing up contingency plans for the collapse of Thames Water amid growing doubts in Whitehall about the ability of Britain’s biggest water company to service its £14bn debt-pile. Thames Water's announcement follows reports that the UK's privatised water and sewage companies paid £1.4bn in dividends in 2022, up from £540m the previous year. As we discussed before. This is whay happens when you put huge financial burdens on companies tofix the problems you previously had to privatise them for because you couldn't afford to fix said problems and then you levy even more burdens on them. The railways receive more govt. subsidies now than ever before. " Railways? We're discussing thames water | |||
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"The government has begun drawing up contingency plans for the collapse of Thames Water amid growing doubts in Whitehall about the ability of Britain’s biggest water company to service its £14bn debt-pile. Thames Water's announcement follows reports that the UK's privatised water and sewage companies paid £1.4bn in dividends in 2022, up from £540m the previous year. As we discussed before. This is whay happens when you put huge financial burdens on companies tofix the problems you previously had to privatise them for because you couldn't afford to fix said problems and then you levy even more burdens on them. The railways receive more govt. subsidies now than ever before. Railways? We're discussing thames water" A post above you mentioned rail. | |||
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"The government has begun drawing up contingency plans for the collapse of Thames Water amid growing doubts in Whitehall about the ability of Britain’s biggest water company to service its £14bn debt-pile. Thames Water's announcement follows reports that the UK's privatised water and sewage companies paid £1.4bn in dividends in 2022, up from £540m the previous year. As we discussed before. This is whay happens when you put huge financial burdens on companies tofix the problems you previously had to privatise them for because you couldn't afford to fix said problems and then you levy even more burdens on them. The railways receive more govt. subsidies now than ever before. Railways? We're discussing thames water A post above you mentioned rail." Then I've no idea why you replied to mine... | |||
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"The government has begun drawing up contingency plans for the collapse of Thames Water amid growing doubts in Whitehall about the ability of Britain’s biggest water company to service its £14bn debt-pile. Thames Water's announcement follows reports that the UK's privatised water and sewage companies paid £1.4bn in dividends in 2022, up from £540m the previous year. As we discussed before. This is whay happens when you put huge financial burdens on companies tofix the problems you previously had to privatise them for because you couldn't afford to fix said problems and then you levy even more burdens on them. " The Thatcher Govt wiped out the entire debt burden when they put water up for sale. If it was such a bad deal, why didn’t investors just walk away before getting involved? Maybe it was the prospect of £57bn in dividends paid since 1991 (across all companies not just TW)? Not to be sniffed at! | |||
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"The government has begun drawing up contingency plans for the collapse of Thames Water amid growing doubts in Whitehall about the ability of Britain’s biggest water company to service its £14bn debt-pile. Thames Water's announcement follows reports that the UK's privatised water and sewage companies paid £1.4bn in dividends in 2022, up from £540m the previous year. As we discussed before. This is whay happens when you put huge financial burdens on companies tofix the problems you previously had to privatise them for because you couldn't afford to fix said problems and then you levy even more burdens on them. The Thatcher Govt wiped out the entire debt burden when they put water up for sale. If it was such a bad deal, why didn’t investors just walk away before getting involved? Maybe it was the prospect of £57bn in dividends paid since 1991 (across all companies not just TW)? Not to be sniffed at!" They did. But the problem still remained thatbthey were vi triangle sewers. Many investors did walk away. This is why theybtook pm the debt burden because capital calls failed. ( when you ask investors to put more money in) They then issued bonds to make the improvements that the victoriana servers needed. Remember across 30 years 60bn of dividends was paid( often some of these dividends are simply to the parent company to pay off the debt) Yet many took on large debts to improve the sewers. Remember we discussed how leaks had drastically reduced. Sadly governments have overburdened them. They got fined for leaks which they improved They go fined for dumping sewerage which had always happened. They were curtailed by ofwat for water prices so couldn't use profits to make these improvements. I'm hoping thaybinnsoem way thames water is nationalised and run by the government for 10 years. Then finally people will see what a shit show public companies are | |||
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"The government has begun drawing up contingency plans for the collapse of Thames Water amid growing doubts in Whitehall about the ability of Britain’s biggest water company to service its £14bn debt-pile. Thames Water's announcement follows reports that the UK's privatised water and sewage companies paid £1.4bn in dividends in 2022, up from £540m the previous year. As we discussed before. This is whay happens when you put huge financial burdens on companies tofix the problems you previously had to privatise them for because you couldn't afford to fix said problems and then you levy even more burdens on them. The Thatcher Govt wiped out the entire debt burden when they put water up for sale. If it was such a bad deal, why didn’t investors just walk away before getting involved? Maybe it was the prospect of £57bn in dividends paid since 1991 (across all companies not just TW)? Not to be sniffed at! They did. But the problem still remained thatbthey were vi triangle sewers. Many investors did walk away. This is why theybtook pm the debt burden because capital calls failed. ( when you ask investors to put more money in) They then issued bonds to make the improvements that the victoriana servers needed. Remember across 30 years 60bn of dividends was paid( often some of these dividends are simply to the parent company to pay off the debt) Yet many took on large debts to improve the sewers. Remember we discussed how leaks had drastically reduced. Sadly governments have overburdened them. They got fined for leaks which they improved They go fined for dumping sewerage which had always happened. They were curtailed by ofwat for water prices so couldn't use profits to make these improvements. I'm hoping thaybinnsoem way thames water is nationalised and run by the government for 10 years. Then finally people will see what a shit show public companies are " “Shitshow” I think Morley actually made a joke  | |||
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"Thames Water's announcement follows reports that the UK's privatised water and sewage companies paid £1.4bn in dividends in 2022, up from £540m the previous year." But that's conflating two different stories. Thames Water haven't paid a dividend for the last 5 years. | |||
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"Thames Water's announcement follows reports that the UK's privatised water and sewage companies paid £1.4bn in dividends in 2022, up from £540m the previous year. But that's conflating two different stories. Thames Water haven't paid a dividend for the last 5 years." I thought it was quite clear. You saw it so...? | |||
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"Thames Water's announcement follows reports that the UK's privatised water and sewage companies paid £1.4bn in dividends in 2022, up from £540m the previous year." "But that's conflating two different stories. Thames Water haven't paid a dividend for the last 5 years." "I thought it was quite clear. You saw it so...?" Until today I had thought that you were a well intentioned person, with a habit of sloppy phrasing that made it difficult to understand what you were saying. But it's become clear now that you are deliberately using poorly constructed sentences to make people draw inferences that you can later deny. That does explain why you regularly accuse people of conflating issues. You're clearly very well practiced in that art. | |||
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"Thames Water's announcement follows reports that the UK's privatised water and sewage companies paid £1.4bn in dividends in 2022, up from £540m the previous year. But that's conflating two different stories. Thames Water haven't paid a dividend for the last 5 years. I thought it was quite clear. You saw it so...? Until today I had thought that you were a well intentioned person, with a habit of sloppy phrasing that made it difficult to understand what you were saying. But it's become clear now that you are deliberately using poorly constructed sentences to make people draw inferences that you can later deny. That does explain why you regularly accuse people of conflating issues. You're clearly very well practiced in that art." They haven’t paid dividends to outside share holders but have paid dividends internally . | |||
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"How do they pay dividends when they owe so much? Surely someone must step in before they get into so much debt? It must be cheaper to take back the public services rather than bail them out (pun intended). I presume this is people’s pensions and investments that will suffer. " Possibly 50% of debt has inflation linked interest rate hence they are being hit by this same as other borrowers . | |||
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"Thames Water's announcement follows reports that the UK's privatised water and sewage companies paid £1.4bn in dividends in 2022, up from £540m the previous year. But that's conflating two different stories. Thames Water haven't paid a dividend for the last 5 years. I thought it was quite clear. You saw it so...? Until today I had thought that you were a well intentioned person, with a habit of sloppy phrasing that made it difficult to understand what you were saying. But it's become clear now that you are deliberately using poorly constructed sentences to make people draw inferences that you can later deny. That does explain why you regularly accuse people of conflating issues. You're clearly very well practiced in that art." Nope I just quoted Sky | |||
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"It's quite impressive to get into so much debt when you have a monopoly and your product falls out of the sky." Trump bankrupted a casino. It’s a special level of stupidity. | |||
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"Thames Water's announcement follows reports that the UK's privatised water and sewage companies paid £1.4bn in dividends in 2022, up from £540m the previous year. But that's conflating two different stories. Thames Water haven't paid a dividend for the last 5 years. I thought it was quite clear. You saw it so...? Until today I had thought that you were a well intentioned person, with a habit of sloppy phrasing that made it difficult to understand what you were saying. But it's become clear now that you are deliberately using poorly constructed sentences to make people draw inferences that you can later deny. That does explain why you regularly accuse people of conflating issues. You're clearly very well practiced in that art. Nope I just quoted Sky" BTW for a pedant you are slacking this time. The second paragraph says “...UK's privatised water and sewage companies...” the first paragraph talks about Thames Water, a company (singular) the second about companies (plural). Disappointed in you. Feels like you just wanted to have a dig because you are still sore over the empathy comment you misunderstood  | |||
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"Privatisation has not worked for ordinary people, the concept of competition resulting in lower prices was pure gaslighting. We all pay more now and receive less. Unfortunately nationalised sectors do not work with the system of politics that we currently have because the budgets become political playballs that get tossed around for political capital. Transport, water, sewerage, and energy should all be publicly owned - we just need more stability in our political system to make it work. " 
The essentials for modern life (energy, power, water, waste, communications, health) should be nationalised industries run by the government for the benefit of the people.
The big problem is that no recent government could organise a piss up in a brewery. There is also a culture of endemic waste and inefficiency across the state sector. | |||
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"Privatisation has not worked for ordinary people, the concept of competition resulting in lower prices was pure gaslighting. We all pay more now and receive less. Unfortunately nationalised sectors do not work with the system of politics that we currently have because the budgets become political playballs that get tossed around for political capital. Transport, water, sewerage, and energy should all be publicly owned - we just need more stability in our political system to make it work.
The essentials for modern life (energy, power, water, waste, communications, health) should be nationalised industries run by the government for the benefit of the people.
The big problem is that no recent government could organise a piss up in a brewery. There is also a culture of endemic waste and inefficiency across the state sector."The problem with state-run utilities (apart from government incompetence which you mention) is that borrowing increases the government's debt burden and lessens the scope for investment in other essential services. I see nothing wrong with private companies running public services per se BUT there needs to be tighter regulation. The government could also have a nominated director on every board. | |||
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"Thames Water's announcement follows reports that the UK's privatised water and sewage companies paid £1.4bn in dividends in 2022, up from £540m the previous year." "But that's conflating two different stories. Thames Water haven't paid a dividend for the last 5 years." "They haven’t paid dividends to outside share holders but have paid dividends internally ." What do you mean by that? What is an "internal dividend"? | |||
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"Thames Water's announcement follows reports that the UK's privatised water and sewage companies paid £1.4bn in dividends in 2022, up from £540m the previous year." "But that's conflating two different stories. Thames Water haven't paid a dividend for the last 5 years." "I thought it was quite clear. You saw it so...?" "Until today I had thought that you were a well intentioned person, with a habit of sloppy phrasing that made it difficult to understand what you were saying. But it's become clear now that you are deliberately using poorly constructed sentences to make people draw inferences that you can later deny. That does explain why you regularly accuse people of conflating issues. You're clearly very well practiced in that art." "Nope I just quoted Sky" Oh I see. You took someone else's words and posted them as if they were your own, without bothering to check or understand them. And we wonder why the level of debate is so poor in this forum. | |||
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"Sure someone will correct these figures but U believe since privatisation the water companies in the UK (ten I think) have between then taken on £72bn in debt and in the same period paid £57bn in dividends. Which begs the question, have they been using debt to pay dividends ..." No they haven't. Dividends can only be paid out of profits. You can't (legally) borrow some money and then just hand it out to shareholders. | |||
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"Feels like you just wanted to have a dig because you are still sore over the empathy comment you misunderstood" What empathy comment did I misunderstand? Feel free to answer via PM if you don't want to derail the thread. | |||
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"How do they pay dividends when they owe so much? Surely someone must step in before they get into so much debt? It must be cheaper to take back the public services rather than bail them out (pun intended). I presume this is people’s pensions and investments that will suffer. " Because they make money in so.e years other years they don't. Most the dividends were laid out in the earlier years before the burden of debt was required. The uk gov imposes rules kn what they can charge for water, but demands they increase their spending. This has outstripped the growth in revenue recently. And thus you end up with forced closures. | |||
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"It's quite impressive to get into so much debt when you have a monopoly and your product falls out of the sky." It's not a monopoly. It's not rhe free market. The government restricts price increases. If from 2006 when they were taken over they were only allowed to increased the price of water 55% and this saw revenue increase by say 10bn. But sewer improvements, stopping leaks, wmeffluent release monitoring and fines for failures were all imposed at a cost of 20bn How do you think they pay for that? | |||
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"Privatisation has not worked for ordinary people, the concept of competition resulting in lower prices was pure gaslighting. We all pay more now and receive less. Unfortunately nationalised sectors do not work with the system of politics that we currently have because the budgets become political playballs that get tossed around for political capital. Transport, water, sewerage, and energy should all be publicly owned - we just need more stability in our political system to make it work.
The essentials for modern life (energy, power, water, waste, communications, health) should be nationalised industries run by the government for the benefit of the people.
The big problem is that no recent government could organise a piss up in a brewery. There is also a culture of endemic waste and inefficiency across the state sector."Several of those industries started private. Were nationalised, ran uo huge debts and had to be re sold off, now you want them nationalised again. FYI scot water is nationalised. And its bills are 7% cheaper, but due to barnwtt formula they should be about 11% cheaper. Scot water also has large debts. | |||
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"It's quite impressive to get into so much debt when you have a monopoly and your product falls out of the sky. It's not a monopoly. It's not rhe free market. The government restricts price increases. If from 2006 when they were taken over they were only allowed to increased the price of water 55% and this saw revenue increase by say 10bn. But sewer improvements, stopping leaks, wmeffluent release monitoring and fines for failures were all imposed at a cost of 20bn How do you think they pay for that? " Maybe shareholders should have cut their losses and dumped the shares if the investment was such a poor prospect? | |||
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"In Scotland water is still in state control dont seam to be anywhere near the problems in England" It is | |||
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"It's quite impressive to get into so much debt when you have a monopoly and your product falls out of the sky. It's not a monopoly. It's not rhe free market. The government restricts price increases. If from 2006 when they were taken over they were only allowed to increased the price of water 55% and this saw revenue increase by say 10bn. But sewer improvements, stopping leaks, wmeffluent release monitoring and fines for failures were all imposed at a cost of 20bn How do you think they pay for that? Maybe shareholders should have cut their losses and dumped the shares if the investment was such a poor prospect?" So take losses then on share holdings? I think the fair thing to do is for the government to incentivise the improvements more. | |||
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"It's quite impressive to get into so much debt when you have a monopoly and your product falls out of the sky. It's not a monopoly. It's not rhe free market. The government restricts price increases. If from 2006 when they were taken over they were only allowed to increased the price of water 55% and this saw revenue increase by say 10bn. But sewer improvements, stopping leaks, wmeffluent release monitoring and fines for failures were all imposed at a cost of 20bn How do you think they pay for that? Maybe shareholders should have cut their losses and dumped the shares if the investment was such a poor prospect? So take losses then on share holdings? I think the fair thing to do is for the government to incentivise the improvements more." Yes. Your investment can up or down. You take the risk! Clearly a natural resource that is essential for life is not actually something that should be operated for profit. Who knew!!!! | |||
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"It's quite impressive to get into so much debt when you have a monopoly and your product falls out of the sky. It's not a monopoly. It's not rhe free market. The government restricts price increases. If from 2006 when they were taken over they were only allowed to increased the price of water 55% and this saw revenue increase by say 10bn. But sewer improvements, stopping leaks, wmeffluent release monitoring and fines for failures were all imposed at a cost of 20bn How do you think they pay for that? Maybe shareholders should have cut their losses and dumped the shares if the investment was such a poor prospect? So take losses then on share holdings? I think the fair thing to do is for the government to incentivise the improvements more. Yes. Your investment can up or down. You take the risk! Clearly a natural resource that is essential for life is not actually something that should be operated for profit. Who knew!!!!" | |||
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"It's quite impressive to get into so much debt when you have a monopoly and your product falls out of the sky. It's not a monopoly. It's not rhe free market. The government restricts price increases. If from 2006 when they were taken over they were only allowed to increased the price of water 55% and this saw revenue increase by say 10bn. But sewer improvements, stopping leaks, wmeffluent release monitoring and fines for failures were all imposed at a cost of 20bn How do you think they pay for that? Maybe shareholders should have cut their losses and dumped the shares if the investment was such a poor prospect? So take losses then on share holdings? I think the fair thing to do is for the government to incentivise the improvements more. Yes. Your investment can up or down. You take the risk! Clearly a natural resource that is essential for life is not actually something that should be operated for profit. Who knew!!!!" I would say that if you privatise an industry there should be no political interference. | |||
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"It's quite impressive to get into so much debt when you have a monopoly and your product falls out of the sky. It's not a monopoly. It's not rhe free market. The government restricts price increases. If from 2006 when they were taken over they were only allowed to increased the price of water 55% and this saw revenue increase by say 10bn. But sewer improvements, stopping leaks, wmeffluent release monitoring and fines for failures were all imposed at a cost of 20bn How do you think they pay for that? Maybe shareholders should have cut their losses and dumped the shares if the investment was such a poor prospect? So take losses then on share holdings? I think the fair thing to do is for the government to incentivise the improvements more. Yes. Your investment can up or down. You take the risk! Clearly a natural resource that is essential for life is not actually something that should be operated for profit. Who knew!!!! I would say that if you privatise an industry there should be no political interference. " Including subsidies? | |||
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"It's quite impressive to get into so much debt when you have a monopoly and your product falls out of the sky. It's not a monopoly. It's not rhe free market. The government restricts price increases. If from 2006 when they were taken over they were only allowed to increased the price of water 55% and this saw revenue increase by say 10bn. But sewer improvements, stopping leaks, wmeffluent release monitoring and fines for failures were all imposed at a cost of 20bn How do you think they pay for that? Maybe shareholders should have cut their losses and dumped the shares if the investment was such a poor prospect? So take losses then on share holdings? I think the fair thing to do is for the government to incentivise the improvements more. Yes. Your investment can up or down. You take the risk! Clearly a natural resource that is essential for life is not actually something that should be operated for profit. Who knew!!!! I would say that if you privatise an industry there should be no political interference. " I disagree. I think utilities should be highly regulated with a strict covenant of expectations on the operators with set targets. If investors don’t like it then don’t invest! Looks like Thatcher’s govt may have sold investors a turkey! | |||
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"Economist Richard Murphy has done some research and combined the accounts of the nine England water companies that process sewage. Murphy has sometimes rather outlandish policy ideas but this is just balance sheet analysis. Interesting findings... The operating profit margin in this industry is 35%. That is staggeringly high, and it goes up to 38% when other income is taken into account. 38p in every pound you pay for water is operating profit i.e. profit before the cost of borrowing. Regarding the cost of borrowing he has offset interest received against interest paid. That still leaves interest costs representing an average 20% of income. 20p in every pound paid to these companies, on average, goes on interest. The average corp tax rate is 19%, but that is way below the expected tax rate for this period when the tax rate was as high as 30% for some of it. And much of that tax has not been paid: more than £8bn has been deferred. Of the almost £25 billion they have made in profit over the years they have paid out every penny, and more, in dividends. In other words, the shareholders have taken 15p in every pound paid for water. There was nothing left for reinvestment, at all. The industry has £77 billion invested in equipment. The rest of its assets are some financial investments, a bit of cash and sums owing to it from customers. What is scary is what the industry owes. The £77 billion of equipment is financed, in the main by borrowings of almost £55 billion, or more. It’s also funded by the tax not yet due of more than £8.5 billion, which brings down the cash-paid tax rate of the industry considerably. Even the pension funds of those working for the industry are contributing to the funding, and there is more borrowing of various sorts in the other sums owing, totalling more than £10.7 billion. What this means is that of the total £91 billion invested in the sector more than £78 billion is funded by borrowing or sums owing of some sort and only just over £13 billion is funded by the shareholders. What that also means is that the shareholders provide less than 15% of the overall funding for this industry. So much for the idea that private capital would fund water after privatisation. The reality is that borrowing is doing so." Looking at what he's saying he misses out some startling detail He mentions 35% as the operating profit. This is not the current op in todays figures. He doesn't give those( and I have alluded to the reasons why) in 2002-2022 The average was 35% The current op for 2022 accounts he's analysed is 25% What would be more useful would be a snapshot ofmthe 2002 op va today. The trajectory sugests that as I alluded to turnover didn't increase but costs of generating thay turnover increased greatly. Turnover form the average increased 26% Costs of thay generation increased 57% They were most likely much better back in 2002 as we can see in w022 they are significantly more. Your interest cover was 57% 2002-2022 However there now is no interest cover. You have a shortfall of 30% Again as I said. The requirements to make improvements have resulted in bonds being given out. Of the dividends. I think Richard needs to be wary. Quite pften they are simply divide ds paid to the parent company. Not to share holders. There will be something wrong in his calculations he's hiding. And probably why he's done An average over such a long time to mask. As if you make profits of 24.8mm you cant really pay 26.6m I imagine as above in the earlier years. Maybe net profit was for example. 20m and 2m was paid as dividends then as the debts have caught up to fund the investment in better drainage and systems. As per the lack of dividends since 2017 for Thames water. Theblosses have outstripped the profit. I've no idea why he's averaged it like this as an accountant it's very counter intuitive | |||
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"Economist Richard Murphy ..." Richard Murphy has a long history of cherry picking data, and ignoring anything that doesn't fit his theory of the day. You should be very careful before using any data he presents. He's still insisting that the best way to solve the cost of living crisis is to print some more money. | |||
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"Economist Richard Murphy has done some research and combined the accounts of the nine England water companies that process sewage. Murphy has sometimes rather outlandish policy ideas but this is just balance sheet analysis. Interesting findings... The operating profit margin in this industry is 35%. That is staggeringly high, and it goes up to 38% when other income is taken into account. 38p in every pound you pay for water is operating profit i.e. profit before the cost of borrowing. Regarding the cost of borrowing he has offset interest received against interest paid. That still leaves interest costs representing an average 20% of income. 20p in every pound paid to these companies, on average, goes on interest. The average corp tax rate is 19%, but that is way below the expected tax rate for this period when the tax rate was as high as 30% for some of it. And much of that tax has not been paid: more than £8bn has been deferred. Of the almost £25 billion they have made in profit over the years they have paid out every penny, and more, in dividends. In other words, the shareholders have taken 15p in every pound paid for water. There was nothing left for reinvestment, at all. The industry has £77 billion invested in equipment. The rest of its assets are some financial investments, a bit of cash and sums owing to it from customers. What is scary is what the industry owes. The £77 billion of equipment is financed, in the main by borrowings of almost £55 billion, or more. It’s also funded by the tax not yet due of more than £8.5 billion, which brings down the cash-paid tax rate of the industry considerably. Even the pension funds of those working for the industry are contributing to the funding, and there is more borrowing of various sorts in the other sums owing, totalling more than £10.7 billion. What this means is that of the total £91 billion invested in the sector more than £78 billion is funded by borrowing or sums owing of some sort and only just over £13 billion is funded by the shareholders. What that also means is that the shareholders provide less than 15% of the overall funding for this industry. So much for the idea that private capital would fund water after privatisation. The reality is that borrowing is doing so. Looking at what he's saying he misses out some startling detail He mentions 35% as the operating profit. This is not the current op in todays figures. He doesn't give those( and I have alluded to the reasons why) in 2002-2022 The average was 35% The current op for 2022 accounts he's analysed is 25% What would be more useful would be a snapshot ofmthe 2002 op va today. The trajectory sugests that as I alluded to turnover didn't increase but costs of generating thay turnover increased greatly. Turnover form the average increased 26% Costs of thay generation increased 57% They were most likely much better back in 2002 as we can see in w022 they are significantly more. Your interest cover was 57% 2002-2022 However there now is no interest cover. You have a shortfall of 30% Again as I said. The requirements to make improvements have resulted in bonds being given out. Of the dividends. I think Richard needs to be wary. Quite pften they are simply divide ds paid to the parent company. Not to share holders. There will be something wrong in his calculations he's hiding. And probably why he's done An average over such a long time to mask. As if you make profits of 24.8mm you cant really pay 26.6m I imagine as above in the earlier years. Maybe net profit was for example. 20m and 2m was paid as dividends then as the debts have caught up to fund the investment in better drainage and systems. As per the lack of dividends since 2017 for Thames water. Theblosses have outstripped the profit. I've no idea why he's averaged it like this as an accountant it's very counter intuitive " Morley thanks for a considered response. I think you should put that to him. Personally this accountant talk is beyond me! | |||
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"Economist Richard Murphy ... Richard Murphy has a long history of cherry picking data, and ignoring anything that doesn't fit his theory of the day. You should be very careful before using any data he presents. He's still insisting that the best way to solve the cost of living crisis is to print some more money." Absolutely which is why I said in my post about him... “Murphy has sometimes rather outlandish policy ideas but this is just balance sheet analysis” It looks like Morley is questioning the balance sheet analysis, something I am not equipped or confident to do. But in pure layperson terms, how can these companies have paid significant dividends rather than increase investment out of profits rather than take on more debt? | |||
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"Economist Richard Murphy ... Richard Murphy has a long history of cherry picking data, and ignoring anything that doesn't fit his theory of the day. You should be very careful before using any data he presents. He's still insisting that the best way to solve the cost of living crisis is to print some more money. Absolutely which is why I said in my post about him... “Murphy has sometimes rather outlandish policy ideas but this is just balance sheet analysis” It looks like Morley is questioning the balance sheet analysis, something I am not equipped or confident to do. But in pure layperson terms, how can these companies have paid significant dividends rather than increase investment out of profits rather than take on more debt?" Let me word that last paragraph a little better... But in pure layperson terms, how can these companies have paid significant dividends since privatisation rather than increase the investment they make by taking it out of net profits (and paying smaller dividends)? It appears that instead they have taken on more debt and passed the cost of servicing that debt onto consumers but as the Govt set bill thresholds (I think that is what Morley has said) then they now have a gap in their financing. | |||
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"But in pure layperson terms, how can these companies have paid significant dividends since privatisation rather than increase the investment they make by taking it out of net profits (and paying smaller dividends)? It appears that instead they have taken on more debt and passed the cost of servicing that debt onto consumers but as the Govt set bill thresholds (I think that is what Morley has said) then they now have a gap in their financing." At the beginning they probably were making significant profits. After cutting out all the dead wood and streamlining the business, they could afford to pay big dividends. But the government has put more and more burdens on them over the years - monitoring sewage losses, monitoring leakage, targets for leak reduction, etc. The debt has been taken up relatively recently, in order to make the changes that the government is insisting on. I'd like to see a breakdown of profit and loss over the years, which might show that they all took out big profits in the early years, but aren't doing anywhere near as well now. | |||
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"But in pure layperson terms, how can these companies have paid significant dividends since privatisation rather than increase the investment they make by taking it out of net profits (and paying smaller dividends)? It appears that instead they have taken on more debt and passed the cost of servicing that debt onto consumers but as the Govt set bill thresholds (I think that is what Morley has said) then they now have a gap in their financing. At the beginning they probably were making significant profits. After cutting out all the dead wood and streamlining the business, they could afford to pay big dividends. But the government has put more and more burdens on them over the years - monitoring sewage losses, monitoring leakage, targets for leak reduction, etc. The debt has been taken up relatively recently, in order to make the changes that the government is insisting on. I'd like to see a breakdown of profit and loss over the years, which might show that they all took out big profits in the early years, but aren't doing anywhere near as well now." That would be helpful to allow informed discussion! | |||
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"Economist Richard Murphy has done some research and combined the accounts of the nine England water companies that process sewage. Murphy has sometimes rather outlandish policy ideas but this is just balance sheet analysis. Interesting findings... The operating profit margin in this industry is 35%. That is staggeringly high, and it goes up to 38% when other income is taken into account. 38p in every pound you pay for water is operating profit i.e. profit before the cost of borrowing. Regarding the cost of borrowing he has offset interest received against interest paid. That still leaves interest costs representing an average 20% of income. 20p in every pound paid to these companies, on average, goes on interest. The average corp tax rate is 19%, but that is way below the expected tax rate for this period when the tax rate was as high as 30% for some of it. And much of that tax has not been paid: more than £8bn has been deferred. Of the almost £25 billion they have made in profit over the years they have paid out every penny, and more, in dividends. In other words, the shareholders have taken 15p in every pound paid for water. There was nothing left for reinvestment, at all. The industry has £77 billion invested in equipment. The rest of its assets are some financial investments, a bit of cash and sums owing to it from customers. What is scary is what the industry owes. The £77 billion of equipment is financed, in the main by borrowings of almost £55 billion, or more. It’s also funded by the tax not yet due of more than £8.5 billion, which brings down the cash-paid tax rate of the industry considerably. Even the pension funds of those working for the industry are contributing to the funding, and there is more borrowing of various sorts in the other sums owing, totalling more than £10.7 billion. What this means is that of the total £91 billion invested in the sector more than £78 billion is funded by borrowing or sums owing of some sort and only just over £13 billion is funded by the shareholders. What that also means is that the shareholders provide less than 15% of the overall funding for this industry. So much for the idea that private capital would fund water after privatisation. The reality is that borrowing is doing so. Looking at what he's saying he misses out some startling detail He mentions 35% as the operating profit. This is not the current op in todays figures. He doesn't give those( and I have alluded to the reasons why) in 2002-2022 The average was 35% The current op for 2022 accounts he's analysed is 25% What would be more useful would be a snapshot ofmthe 2002 op va today. The trajectory sugests that as I alluded to turnover didn't increase but costs of generating thay turnover increased greatly. Turnover form the average increased 26% Costs of thay generation increased 57% They were most likely much better back in 2002 as we can see in w022 they are significantly more. Your interest cover was 57% 2002-2022 However there now is no interest cover. You have a shortfall of 30% Again as I said. The requirements to make improvements have resulted in bonds being given out. Of the dividends. I think Richard needs to be wary. Quite pften they are simply divide ds paid to the parent company. Not to share holders. There will be something wrong in his calculations he's hiding. And probably why he's done An average over such a long time to mask. As if you make profits of 24.8mm you cant really pay 26.6m I imagine as above in the earlier years. Maybe net profit was for example. 20m and 2m was paid as dividends then as the debts have caught up to fund the investment in better drainage and systems. As per the lack of dividends since 2017 for Thames water. Theblosses have outstripped the profit. I've no idea why he's averaged it like this as an accountant it's very counter intuitive Morley thanks for a considered response. I think you should put that to him. Personally this accountant talk is beyond me! " Richard often doesn't respond on such things. I and others jave often brought these thing sup with him and he ignores us | |||
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"Economist Richard Murphy ... Richard Murphy has a long history of cherry picking data, and ignoring anything that doesn't fit his theory of the day. You should be very careful before using any data he presents. He's still insisting that the best way to solve the cost of living crisis is to print some more money. Absolutely which is why I said in my post about him... “Murphy has sometimes rather outlandish policy ideas but this is just balance sheet analysis” It looks like Morley is questioning the balance sheet analysis, something I am not equipped or confident to do. But in pure layperson terms, how can these companies have paid significant dividends rather than increase investment out of profits rather than take on more debt?" I've sadly had run ins with him before. I am now blocked after pointing g out some major flaws in his arguments he never replied to | |||
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"Economist Richard Murphy has done some research and combined the accounts of the nine England water companies that process sewage. Murphy has sometimes rather outlandish policy ideas but this is just balance sheet analysis. Interesting findings... The operating profit margin in this industry is 35%. That is staggeringly high, and it goes up to 38% when other income is taken into account. 38p in every pound you pay for water is operating profit i.e. profit before the cost of borrowing. Regarding the cost of borrowing he has offset interest received against interest paid. That still leaves interest costs representing an average 20% of income. 20p in every pound paid to these companies, on average, goes on interest. The average corp tax rate is 19%, but that is way below the expected tax rate for this period when the tax rate was as high as 30% for some of it. And much of that tax has not been paid: more than £8bn has been deferred. Of the almost £25 billion they have made in profit over the years they have paid out every penny, and more, in dividends. In other words, the shareholders have taken 15p in every pound paid for water. There was nothing left for reinvestment, at all. The industry has £77 billion invested in equipment. The rest of its assets are some financial investments, a bit of cash and sums owing to it from customers. What is scary is what the industry owes. The £77 billion of equipment is financed, in the main by borrowings of almost £55 billion, or more. It’s also funded by the tax not yet due of more than £8.5 billion, which brings down the cash-paid tax rate of the industry considerably. Even the pension funds of those working for the industry are contributing to the funding, and there is more borrowing of various sorts in the other sums owing, totalling more than £10.7 billion. What this means is that of the total £91 billion invested in the sector more than £78 billion is funded by borrowing or sums owing of some sort and only just over £13 billion is funded by the shareholders. What that also means is that the shareholders provide less than 15% of the overall funding for this industry. So much for the idea that private capital would fund water after privatisation. The reality is that borrowing is doing so. Looking at what he's saying he misses out some startling detail He mentions 35% as the operating profit. This is not the current op in todays figures. He doesn't give those( and I have alluded to the reasons why) in 2002-2022 The average was 35% The current op for 2022 accounts he's analysed is 25% What would be more useful would be a snapshot ofmthe 2002 op va today. The trajectory sugests that as I alluded to turnover didn't increase but costs of generating thay turnover increased greatly. Turnover form the average increased 26% Costs of thay generation increased 57% They were most likely much better back in 2002 as we can see in w022 they are significantly more. Your interest cover was 57% 2002-2022 However there now is no interest cover. You have a shortfall of 30% Again as I said. The requirements to make improvements have resulted in bonds being given out. Of the dividends. I think Richard needs to be wary. Quite pften they are simply divide ds paid to the parent company. Not to share holders. There will be something wrong in his calculations he's hiding. And probably why he's done An average over such a long time to mask. As if you make profits of 24.8mm you cant really pay 26.6m I imagine as above in the earlier years. Maybe net profit was for example. 20m and 2m was paid as dividends then as the debts have caught up to fund the investment in better drainage and systems. As per the lack of dividends since 2017 for Thames water. Theblosses have outstripped the profit. I've no idea why he's averaged it like this as an accountant it's very counter intuitive Morley thanks for a considered response. I think you should put that to him. Personally this accountant talk is beyond me! Richard often doesn't respond on such things. I and others jave often brought these thing sup with him and he ignores us " Pity. His excuse may be that he has 271,000 followers, so pretty significant! Maybe too many responses? | |||
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"Economist Richard Murphy has done some research and combined the accounts of the nine England water companies that process sewage. Murphy has sometimes rather outlandish policy ideas but this is just balance sheet analysis. Interesting findings... The operating profit margin in this industry is 35%. That is staggeringly high, and it goes up to 38% when other income is taken into account. 38p in every pound you pay for water is operating profit i.e. profit before the cost of borrowing. Regarding the cost of borrowing he has offset interest received against interest paid. That still leaves interest costs representing an average 20% of income. 20p in every pound paid to these companies, on average, goes on interest. The average corp tax rate is 19%, but that is way below the expected tax rate for this period when the tax rate was as high as 30% for some of it. And much of that tax has not been paid: more than £8bn has been deferred. Of the almost £25 billion they have made in profit over the years they have paid out every penny, and more, in dividends. In other words, the shareholders have taken 15p in every pound paid for water. There was nothing left for reinvestment, at all. The industry has £77 billion invested in equipment. The rest of its assets are some financial investments, a bit of cash and sums owing to it from customers. What is scary is what the industry owes. The £77 billion of equipment is financed, in the main by borrowings of almost £55 billion, or more. It’s also funded by the tax not yet due of more than £8.5 billion, which brings down the cash-paid tax rate of the industry considerably. Even the pension funds of those working for the industry are contributing to the funding, and there is more borrowing of various sorts in the other sums owing, totalling more than £10.7 billion. What this means is that of the total £91 billion invested in the sector more than £78 billion is funded by borrowing or sums owing of some sort and only just over £13 billion is funded by the shareholders. What that also means is that the shareholders provide less than 15% of the overall funding for this industry. So much for the idea that private capital would fund water after privatisation. The reality is that borrowing is doing so. Looking at what he's saying he misses out some startling detail He mentions 35% as the operating profit. This is not the current op in todays figures. He doesn't give those( and I have alluded to the reasons why) in 2002-2022 The average was 35% The current op for 2022 accounts he's analysed is 25% What would be more useful would be a snapshot ofmthe 2002 op va today. The trajectory sugests that as I alluded to turnover didn't increase but costs of generating thay turnover increased greatly. Turnover form the average increased 26% Costs of thay generation increased 57% They were most likely much better back in 2002 as we can see in w022 they are significantly more. Your interest cover was 57% 2002-2022 However there now is no interest cover. You have a shortfall of 30% Again as I said. The requirements to make improvements have resulted in bonds being given out. Of the dividends. I think Richard needs to be wary. Quite pften they are simply divide ds paid to the parent company. Not to share holders. There will be something wrong in his calculations he's hiding. And probably why he's done An average over such a long time to mask. As if you make profits of 24.8mm you cant really pay 26.6m I imagine as above in the earlier years. Maybe net profit was for example. 20m and 2m was paid as dividends then as the debts have caught up to fund the investment in better drainage and systems. As per the lack of dividends since 2017 for Thames water. Theblosses have outstripped the profit. I've no idea why he's averaged it like this as an accountant it's very counter intuitive Morley thanks for a considered response. I think you should put that to him. Personally this accountant talk is beyond me! Richard often doesn't respond on such things. I and others jave often brought these thing sup with him and he ignores us Pity. His excuse may be that he has 271,000 followers, so pretty significant! Maybe too many responses?" .I got blocked. So he saw | |||
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"Economist Richard Murphy has done some research and combined the accounts of the nine England water companies that process sewage. Murphy has sometimes rather outlandish policy ideas but this is just balance sheet analysis. Interesting findings... The operating profit margin in this industry is 35%. That is staggeringly high, and it goes up to 38% when other income is taken into account. 38p in every pound you pay for water is operating profit i.e. profit before the cost of borrowing. Regarding the cost of borrowing he has offset interest received against interest paid. That still leaves interest costs representing an average 20% of income. 20p in every pound paid to these companies, on average, goes on interest. The average corp tax rate is 19%, but that is way below the expected tax rate for this period when the tax rate was as high as 30% for some of it. And much of that tax has not been paid: more than £8bn has been deferred. Of the almost £25 billion they have made in profit over the years they have paid out every penny, and more, in dividends. In other words, the shareholders have taken 15p in every pound paid for water. There was nothing left for reinvestment, at all. The industry has £77 billion invested in equipment. The rest of its assets are some financial investments, a bit of cash and sums owing to it from customers. What is scary is what the industry owes. The £77 billion of equipment is financed, in the main by borrowings of almost £55 billion, or more. It’s also funded by the tax not yet due of more than £8.5 billion, which brings down the cash-paid tax rate of the industry considerably. Even the pension funds of those working for the industry are contributing to the funding, and there is more borrowing of various sorts in the other sums owing, totalling more than £10.7 billion. What this means is that of the total £91 billion invested in the sector more than £78 billion is funded by borrowing or sums owing of some sort and only just over £13 billion is funded by the shareholders. What that also means is that the shareholders provide less than 15% of the overall funding for this industry. So much for the idea that private capital would fund water after privatisation. The reality is that borrowing is doing so. Looking at what he's saying he misses out some startling detail He mentions 35% as the operating profit. This is not the current op in todays figures. He doesn't give those( and I have alluded to the reasons why) in 2002-2022 The average was 35% The current op for 2022 accounts he's analysed is 25% What would be more useful would be a snapshot ofmthe 2002 op va today. The trajectory sugests that as I alluded to turnover didn't increase but costs of generating thay turnover increased greatly. Turnover form the average increased 26% Costs of thay generation increased 57% They were most likely much better back in 2002 as we can see in w022 they are significantly more. Your interest cover was 57% 2002-2022 However there now is no interest cover. You have a shortfall of 30% Again as I said. The requirements to make improvements have resulted in bonds being given out. Of the dividends. I think Richard needs to be wary. Quite pften they are simply divide ds paid to the parent company. Not to share holders. There will be something wrong in his calculations he's hiding. And probably why he's done An average over such a long time to mask. As if you make profits of 24.8mm you cant really pay 26.6m I imagine as above in the earlier years. Maybe net profit was for example. 20m and 2m was paid as dividends then as the debts have caught up to fund the investment in better drainage and systems. As per the lack of dividends since 2017 for Thames water. Theblosses have outstripped the profit. I've no idea why he's averaged it like this as an accountant it's very counter intuitive Morley thanks for a considered response. I think you should put that to him. Personally this accountant talk is beyond me! Richard often doesn't respond on such things. I and others jave often brought these thing sup with him and he ignores us Pity. His excuse may be that he has 271,000 followers, so pretty significant! Maybe too many responses? .I got blocked. So he saw " Ok this and your other post shows some poor behaviour on his part. | |||
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"The government has begun drawing up contingency plans for the collapse of Thames Water amid growing doubts in Whitehall about the ability of Britain’s biggest water company to service its £14bn debt-pile. Thames Water's announcement follows reports that the UK's privatised water and sewage companies paid £1.4bn in dividends in 2022, up from £540m the previous year." . What exactly is this post supposed to mean ? Thames Water last paid dividends in 2017 so at least six years ago. In any event a more meaningful measure would be dividend per share in order that returns could be measured. If a company is run efficiently it is difficult to see how privatisation could help. We have little choice but to accept that mains replacement and stopping leaks is expensive work. Public ownership simply moves the problem to the tax payer but does not provide solutions How many water consumers will be volunteering to pay additional water rates in order to increase capital investment. ? It looks like the only solution is to increase charges to the consumer . Mains replacement is expensive. Shifting the burden to central government is hardly a rational solution. I am sure that the various engineering issues have already been reviewed to see if there are more efficient methods of completing the work. | |||
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"The government has begun drawing up contingency plans for the collapse of Thames Water amid growing doubts in Whitehall about the ability of Britain’s biggest water company to service its £14bn debt-pile. Thames Water's announcement follows reports that the UK's privatised water and sewage companies paid £1.4bn in dividends in 2022, up from £540m the previous year.. What exactly is this post supposed to mean ? Thames Water last paid dividends in 2017 so at least six years ago. In any event a more meaningful measure would be dividend per share in order that returns could be measured. If a company is run efficiently it is difficult to see how privatisation could help. We have little choice but to accept that mains replacement and stopping leaks is expensive work. Public ownership simply moves the problem to the tax payer but does not provide solutions How many water consumers will be volunteering to pay additional water rates in order to increase capital investment. ? It looks like the only solution is to increase charges to the consumer . Mains replacement is expensive. Shifting the burden to central government is hardly a rational solution. I am sure that the various engineering issues have already been reviewed to see if there are more efficient methods of completing the work. " Pat read what was written. No mention of Thames Water dividends. First paragraph talks about a company (singular) second para companies (plural). Then read some of the other posts. You are better when Trolling Tories, but then you are working with richer material. | |||
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"The government has begun drawing up contingency plans for the collapse of Thames Water amid growing doubts in Whitehall about the ability of Britain’s biggest water company to service its £14bn debt-pile. Thames Water's announcement follows reports that the UK's privatised water and sewage companies paid £1.4bn in dividends in 2022, up from £540m the previous year. As we discussed before. This is whay happens when you put huge financial burdens on companies tofix the problems you previously had to privatise them for because you couldn't afford to fix said problems and then you levy even more burdens on them. " She gets paid £2m a year , she’s got no excuse , they been debt financing on low interest rates for years while paying high dividends to share holders and parent company, they know exactly what they are doing and it’s nothing to do with water | |||
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"The government has begun drawing up contingency plans for the collapse of Thames Water amid growing doubts in Whitehall about the ability of Britain’s biggest water company to service its £14bn debt-pile. Thames Water's announcement follows reports that the UK's privatised water and sewage companies paid £1.4bn in dividends in 2022, up from £540m the previous year." Years of high dividend payments with low investment. Once services deteriorated to the point that the regulator stepped in, investment was paid with low cost debt and dividends still paid. Now that interest rates have gone up, the debt can no longer be serviced and profits are finally getting gobbled up. Greed combined with poor governance. The public sector can only suffer from one of these two. | |||
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"Yorkshire Water now admitting they are struggling ,,, Either say the next bit quietly , shout it out loud or stick your fingers in your ears while closing your eyes pretending it is not correct ,, but it looks like Corbyn was right " Youabrw aware that Scottish and Welsh water are in the same troubles yes? | |||
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"The government has begun drawing up contingency plans for the collapse of Thames Water amid growing doubts in Whitehall about the ability of Britain’s biggest water company to service its £14bn debt-pile. Thames Water's announcement follows reports that the UK's privatised water and sewage companies paid £1.4bn in dividends in 2022, up from £540m the previous year. Years of high dividend payments with low investment. Once services deteriorated to the point that the regulator stepped in, investment was paid with low cost debt and dividends still paid. Now that interest rates have gone up, the debt can no longer be serviced and profits are finally getting gobbled up. Greed combined with poor governance. The public sector can only suffer from one of these two." What low investment aorry? And what high dividends If we take Thames water as an example What dividends were taken out each year from privatisation and what was the low investment? This runs counter intuitive to the costs of effluent monitoring,the decrease in leaks etc. | |||
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"The government has begun drawing up contingency plans for the collapse of Thames Water amid growing doubts in Whitehall about the ability of Britain’s biggest water company to service its £14bn debt-pile. Thames Water's announcement follows reports that the UK's privatised water and sewage companies paid £1.4bn in dividends in 2022, up from £540m the previous year. Years of high dividend payments with low investment. Once services deteriorated to the point that the regulator stepped in, investment was paid with low cost debt and dividends still paid. Now that interest rates have gone up, the debt can no longer be serviced and profits are finally getting gobbled up. Greed combined with poor governance. The public sector can only suffer from one of these two. What low investment aorry? And what high dividends If we take Thames water as an example What dividends were taken out each year from privatisation and what was the low investment? This runs counter intuitive to the costs of effluent monitoring,the decrease in leaks etc. " £7.2bn in dividends since 1990. Front loaded. £14.3bn in debt since 1990. Heavily rear loaded. Debt ramped up as the consequences of lack of investment became more apparent. Regardless, investment was delayed and then paid through raising huge amounts of debt whilst dividends were being paid out. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jun/30/in-charts-how-privatisation-drained-thames-waters-coffers This does not run "counter-intuitive" to anything. What does whoever you are repeating on Twitter say? Just quote it. It's far easier than you repeating something that you don't understand. | |||
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"The government has begun drawing up contingency plans for the collapse of Thames Water amid growing doubts in Whitehall about the ability of Britain’s biggest water company to service its £14bn debt-pile. Thames Water's announcement follows reports that the UK's privatised water and sewage companies paid £1.4bn in dividends in 2022, up from £540m the previous year. As we discussed before. This is whay happens when you put huge financial burdens on companies tofix the problems you previously had to privatise them for because you couldn't afford to fix said problems and then you levy even more burdens on them. The Thatcher Govt wiped out the entire debt burden when they put water up for sale. If it was such a bad deal, why didn’t investors just walk away before getting involved? Maybe it was the prospect of £57bn in dividends paid since 1991 (across all companies not just TW)? Not to be sniffed at!" Thatcher sold every bit of the family silver and gave tax cuts to the richest in the country. She knew it was always coming back to bite us but it got her re-elected. | |||
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"I used to work in the Water Industry (amongst others). The industry was privatised partly because the government couldn't afford to make the investment in cleaning up potable water, the quality of which was deteriorating fast because of acid rain (remember that?). The water companies invested £billions in water treatment plants and did a good job. Sewage is more complicated. The companies inherited a flawed legacy pipe network. This is because we are one of the few countries that combine sewage and rain runoff in the same system. Now, with climate change and more flooding the systems get overloaded. The cost of a modified sewage system is horrendous running into £100's billions. The question is, who pays and how?" It is not a suprise that we are in this situation, is it? The problem has not been successfully managed. In fact, it could be argued that a crisis has been engineered such that management walks away and both the taxpayer and final shareholders are left to pay the bill. | |||
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"Maybe we simply need to face reality We should calculate the cost repairing and updating the current infrastructure. Depreciate these costs over the relevant number of years and add these costs to the consumers water bills. It would be interesting to see how many consumers would be keen to stop leaaks if they had to pay the true cost of the service themselves . It is a lot easier to blame shareholders instead of recognising how expensive this repair work is . " So shareholders should pick up the cost for updating the infrastructure they invested in right? Otherwise don’t invest. Nobody made them invest! A more modest amount of dividends since privatisation would have either enabled increased investment and/or a reduction in borrowing/debt. | |||
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"The government has begun drawing up contingency plans for the collapse of Thames Water amid growing doubts in Whitehall about the ability of Britain’s biggest water company to service its £14bn debt-pile. Thames Water's announcement follows reports that the UK's privatised water and sewage companies paid £1.4bn in dividends in 2022, up from £540m the previous year. Years of high dividend payments with low investment. Once services deteriorated to the point that the regulator stepped in, investment was paid with low cost debt and dividends still paid. Now that interest rates have gone up, the debt can no longer be serviced and profits are finally getting gobbled up. Greed combined with poor governance. The public sector can only suffer from one of these two. What low investment aorry? And what high dividends If we take Thames water as an example What dividends were taken out each year from privatisation and what was the low investment? This runs counter intuitive to the costs of effluent monitoring,the decrease in leaks etc. £7.2bn in dividends since 1990. Front loaded. £14.3bn in debt since 1990. Heavily rear loaded. Debt ramped up as the consequences of lack of investment became more apparent. Regardless, investment was delayed and then paid through raising huge amounts of debt whilst dividends were being paid out. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jun/30/in-charts-how-privatisation-drained-thames-waters-coffers This does not run "counter-intuitive" to anything. What does whoever you are repeating on Twitter say? Just quote it. It's far easier than you repeating something that you don't understand." So then the dividends were paid quite early on, before government began fining and demanding better quality vs when it was publicly owned. And not so much in the back end years. Debt isn't investment. | |||
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"I used to work in the Water Industry (amongst others). The industry was privatised partly because the government couldn't afford to make the investment in cleaning up potable water, the quality of which was deteriorating fast because of acid rain (remember that?). The water companies invested £billions in water treatment plants and did a good job. Sewage is more complicated. The companies inherited a flawed legacy pipe network. This is because we are one of the few countries that combine sewage and rain runoff in the same system. Now, with climate change and more flooding the systems get overloaded. The cost of a modified sewage system is horrendous running into £100's billions. The question is, who pays and how?" Clearly not the tax payer as the government has limited the cost a water firm can charge, clearly not the shareholder who has refused calls for further investment. Clearly not previous tax payers or governments since the drainage system is 150 years old. The debt burden seems a direct result of the attempt to follow the government demands on improvements it couldn't deliver itself under public ownership. | |||
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"Maybe we simply need to face reality We should calculate the cost repairing and updating the current infrastructure. Depreciate these costs over the relevant number of years and add these costs to the consumers water bills. It would be interesting to see how many consumers would be keen to stop leaaks if they had to pay the true cost of the service themselves . It is a lot easier to blame shareholders instead of recognising how expensive this repair work is . So shareholders should pick up the cost for updating the infrastructure they invested in right? Otherwise don’t invest. Nobody made them invest! A more modest amount of dividends since privatisation would have either enabled increased investment and/or a reduction in borrowing/debt. " I asked how much the company had invested. Still no answer | |||
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"I used to work in the Water Industry (amongst others). The industry was privatised partly because the government couldn't afford to make the investment in cleaning up potable water, the quality of which was deteriorating fast because of acid rain (remember that?). The water companies invested £billions in water treatment plants and did a good job. Sewage is more complicated. The companies inherited a flawed legacy pipe network. This is because we are one of the few countries that combine sewage and rain runoff in the same system. Now, with climate change and more flooding the systems get overloaded. The cost of a modified sewage system is horrendous running into £100's billions. The question is, who pays and how? It is not a suprise that we are in this situation, is it? The problem has not been successfully managed. In fact, it could be argued that a crisis has been engineered such that management walks away and both the taxpayer and final shareholders are left to pay the bill." Yep and saying “govt couldn’t afford it” is really a bit of a misnomer. The Thatcher Govt chose not to address this (they could have issued bonds to finance it) and instead wanted to make it someone else’s problem but sweetened the deal by writing off all existing debt. The new shareholders and execs then decided to milk the cow (taking our huge dividends) for several years rather than actually properly tackling the investment requirements! | |||
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"Yorkshire Water now admitting they are struggling ,,, Either say the next bit quietly , shout it out loud or stick your fingers in your ears while closing your eyes pretending it is not correct ,, but it looks like Corbyn was right Youabrw aware that Scottish and Welsh water are in the same troubles yes?" . ;,,,, option 3 ..... | |||
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"I used to work in the Water Industry (amongst others). The industry was privatised partly because the government couldn't afford to make the investment in cleaning up potable water, the quality of which was deteriorating fast because of acid rain (remember that?). The water companies invested £billions in water treatment plants and did a good job. Sewage is more complicated. The companies inherited a flawed legacy pipe network. This is because we are one of the few countries that combine sewage and rain runoff in the same system. Now, with climate change and more flooding the systems get overloaded. The cost of a modified sewage system is horrendous running into £100's billions. The question is, who pays and how? It is not a suprise that we are in this situation, is it? The problem has not been successfully managed. In fact, it could be argued that a crisis has been engineered such that management walks away and both the taxpayer and final shareholders are left to pay the bill. Yep and saying “govt couldn’t afford it” is really a bit of a misnomer. The Thatcher Govt chose not to address this (they could have issued bonds to finance it) and instead wanted to make it someone else’s problem but sweetened the deal by writing off all existing debt. The new shareholders and execs then decided to milk the cow (taking our huge dividends) for several years rather than actually properly tackling the investment requirements!" Bonds to finance it. Have you seen how much the new super sewer cost? Remember they wiped out 5bn debt or whatever was held. Let alone actually making improvements. It's not just the thatcher government though as we all know. These waterworks and sewers were created in the 1800s by private companies almost 150 years untouched. | |||
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"I used to work in the Water Industry (amongst others). The industry was privatised partly because the government couldn't afford to make the investment in cleaning up potable water, the quality of which was deteriorating fast because of acid rain (remember that?). The water companies invested £billions in water treatment plants and did a good job. Sewage is more complicated. The companies inherited a flawed legacy pipe network. This is because we are one of the few countries that combine sewage and rain runoff in the same system. Now, with climate change and more flooding the systems get overloaded. The cost of a modified sewage system is horrendous running into £100's billions. The question is, who pays and how? It is not a suprise that we are in this situation, is it? The problem has not been successfully managed. In fact, it could be argued that a crisis has been engineered such that management walks away and both the taxpayer and final shareholders are left to pay the bill. Yep and saying “govt couldn’t afford it” is really a bit of a misnomer. The Thatcher Govt chose not to address this (they could have issued bonds to finance it) and instead wanted to make it someone else’s problem but sweetened the deal by writing off all existing debt. The new shareholders and execs then decided to milk the cow (taking our huge dividends) for several years rather than actually properly tackling the investment requirements! Bonds to finance it. Have you seen how much the new super sewer cost? Remember they wiped out 5bn debt or whatever was held. Let alone actually making improvements. It's not just the thatcher government though as we all know. These waterworks and sewers were created in the 1800s by private companies almost 150 years untouched." Yeah bonds. A bit like 30s USA to pull out of the depression and create employment with huge infrastructure projects. Yep but by the 1930s (I think need to check) Govts realised that things essential for life and public health maybe ought to be owned and controlled by the state in behalf of the people. I doubt anyone is disputing that subsequent govts (on both sides) failed to suitably invest. So clearly private sector investors were sold a turkey BUT short term gain/greed meant they could front load huge dividend payments and only now are we seeing the real consequence. | |||
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"I used to work in the Water Industry (amongst others). The industry was privatised partly because the government couldn't afford to make the investment in cleaning up potable water, the quality of which was deteriorating fast because of acid rain (remember that?). The water companies invested £billions in water treatment plants and did a good job. Sewage is more complicated. The companies inherited a flawed legacy pipe network. This is because we are one of the few countries that combine sewage and rain runoff in the same system. Now, with climate change and more flooding the systems get overloaded. The cost of a modified sewage system is horrendous running into £100's billions. The question is, who pays and how? It is not a suprise that we are in this situation, is it? The problem has not been successfully managed. In fact, it could be argued that a crisis has been engineered such that management walks away and both the taxpayer and final shareholders are left to pay the bill. Yep and saying “govt couldn’t afford it” is really a bit of a misnomer. The Thatcher Govt chose not to address this (they could have issued bonds to finance it) and instead wanted to make it someone else’s problem but sweetened the deal by writing off all existing debt. The new shareholders and execs then decided to milk the cow (taking our huge dividends) for several years rather than actually properly tackling the investment requirements! Bonds to finance it. Have you seen how much the new super sewer cost? Remember they wiped out 5bn debt or whatever was held. Let alone actually making improvements. It's not just the thatcher government though as we all know. These waterworks and sewers were created in the 1800s by private companies almost 150 years untouched. Yeah bonds. A bit like 30s USA to pull out of the depression and create employment with huge infrastructure projects. Yep but by the 1930s (I think need to check) Govts realised that things essential for life and public health maybe ought to be owned and controlled by the state in behalf of the people. I doubt anyone is disputing that subsequent govts (on both sides) failed to suitably invest. So clearly private sector investors were sold a turkey BUT short term gain/greed meant they could front load huge dividend payments and only now are we seeing the real consequence." I'm not sure whay short term gain and greed you are referring to. As even in some of the bigger dividends. 10p a share in the first year wasn't a big payout. I absolutely agree. They were sold a turkey. They were asked to improve leaks.tbey did this. Then more and more stringent policies were put in place. Monitoring effluent, not discharging, investment to stop discharging a population thay grew faster than out drains could cope with due tonpoor immigration policies. All funded by investors who were sold a turkey. Poor from ll governments not to help subsidise any of the new requirements from operations. | |||
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"I used to work in the Water Industry (amongst others). The industry was privatised partly because the government couldn't afford to make the investment in cleaning up potable water, the quality of which was deteriorating fast because of acid rain (remember that?). The water companies invested £billions in water treatment plants and did a good job. Sewage is more complicated. The companies inherited a flawed legacy pipe network. This is because we are one of the few countries that combine sewage and rain runoff in the same system. Now, with climate change and more flooding the systems get overloaded. The cost of a modified sewage system is horrendous running into £100's billions. The question is, who pays and how? It is not a suprise that we are in this situation, is it? The problem has not been successfully managed. In fact, it could be argued that a crisis has been engineered such that management walks away and both the taxpayer and final shareholders are left to pay the bill." Not sure about surprise, but there were two unforeseens 1) climate change and 2) sudden hike in interest rates. The money borrowed for 1) was crippling when 2) happened. As for management, they've probably over-egged their bonuses to the tune of £millions but frankly the problem we face is £billions. | |||
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"I used to work in the Water Industry (amongst others). The industry was privatised partly because the government couldn't afford to make the investment in cleaning up potable water, the quality of which was deteriorating fast because of acid rain (remember that?). The water companies invested £billions in water treatment plants and did a good job. Sewage is more complicated. The companies inherited a flawed legacy pipe network. This is because we are one of the few countries that combine sewage and rain runoff in the same system. Now, with climate change and more flooding the systems get overloaded. The cost of a modified sewage system is horrendous running into £100's billions. The question is, who pays and how? It is not a suprise that we are in this situation, is it? The problem has not been successfully managed. In fact, it could be argued that a crisis has been engineered such that management walks away and both the taxpayer and final shareholders are left to pay the bill. Yep and saying “govt couldn’t afford it” is really a bit of a misnomer. The Thatcher Govt chose not to address this (they could have issued bonds to finance it) and instead wanted to make it someone else’s problem but sweetened the deal by writing off all existing debt. The new shareholders and execs then decided to milk the cow (taking our huge dividends) for several years rather than actually properly tackling the investment requirements! Bonds to finance it. Have you seen how much the new super sewer cost? Remember they wiped out 5bn debt or whatever was held. Let alone actually making improvements. It's not just the thatcher government though as we all know. These waterworks and sewers were created in the 1800s by private companies almost 150 years untouched. Yeah bonds. A bit like 30s USA to pull out of the depression and create employment with huge infrastructure projects. Yep but by the 1930s (I think need to check) Govts realised that things essential for life and public health maybe ought to be owned and controlled by the state in behalf of the people. I doubt anyone is disputing that subsequent govts (on both sides) failed to suitably invest. So clearly private sector investors were sold a turkey BUT short term gain/greed meant they could front load huge dividend payments and only now are we seeing the real consequence. I'm not sure whay short term gain and greed you are referring to. As even in some of the bigger dividends. 10p a share in the first year wasn't a big payout. I absolutely agree. They were sold a turkey. They were asked to improve leaks.tbey did this. Then more and more stringent policies were put in place. Monitoring effluent, not discharging, investment to stop discharging a population thay grew faster than out drains could cope with due tonpoor immigration policies. All funded by investors who were sold a turkey. Poor from ll governments not to help subsidise any of the new requirements from operations. " But NOT all funded by investors. THAT is the point. The majority was funded by debt and they are doing it again and passing cost on to consumers. Why did they need to lay £57bn in dividends since privatisation? Why not £27bn and invest £30bn? They chose to pay out to shareholders early doors. The smart (thieving) ones have taken their money and run. The ones who are left hold the turkey that used to be a golden goose! | |||
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"I used to work in the Water Industry (amongst others). The industry was privatised partly because the government couldn't afford to make the investment in cleaning up potable water, the quality of which was deteriorating fast because of acid rain (remember that?). The water companies invested £billions in water treatment plants and did a good job. Sewage is more complicated. The companies inherited a flawed legacy pipe network. This is because we are one of the few countries that combine sewage and rain runoff in the same system. Now, with climate change and more flooding the systems get overloaded. The cost of a modified sewage system is horrendous running into £100's billions. The question is, who pays and how? It is not a suprise that we are in this situation, is it? The problem has not been successfully managed. In fact, it could be argued that a crisis has been engineered such that management walks away and both the taxpayer and final shareholders are left to pay the bill. Not sure about surprise, but there were two unforeseens 1) climate change and 2) sudden hike in interest rates. The money borrowed for 1) was crippling when 2) happened. As for management, they've probably over-egged their bonuses to the tune of £millions but frankly the problem we face is £billions." Climate change was not unforseen. It has been talked about for decades. Ignored yes. Lampooned yes. Briefed against by well funded lobby groups like Tufton St yes. | |||
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"I used to work in the Water Industry (amongst others). The industry was privatised partly because the government couldn't afford to make the investment in cleaning up potable water, the quality of which was deteriorating fast because of acid rain (remember that?). The water companies invested £billions in water treatment plants and did a good job. Sewage is more complicated. The companies inherited a flawed legacy pipe network. This is because we are one of the few countries that combine sewage and rain runoff in the same system. Now, with climate change and more flooding the systems get overloaded. The cost of a modified sewage system is horrendous running into £100's billions. The question is, who pays and how? It is not a suprise that we are in this situation, is it? The problem has not been successfully managed. In fact, it could be argued that a crisis has been engineered such that management walks away and both the taxpayer and final shareholders are left to pay the bill. Not sure about surprise, but there were two unforeseens 1) climate change and 2) sudden hike in interest rates. The money borrowed for 1) was crippling when 2) happened. As for management, they've probably over-egged their bonuses to the tune of £millions but frankly the problem we face is £billions. Climate change was not unforseen. It has been talked about for decades. Ignored yes. Lampooned yes. Briefed against by well funded lobby groups like Tufton St yes. " Climate change has been talked about for millions of years, ask the dinosaurs  | |||
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"Climate change was not unforseen. It has been talked about for decades. Ignored yes. Lampooned yes. Briefed against by well funded lobby groups like Tufton St yes. " In the 1970s, the climate change that everyone was worried about was the predicted imminent ice age. You can see why a sudden change to predicted overheating wasn't listened to by most people in the 80s and 90s. | |||
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"I used to work in the Water Industry (amongst others). The industry was privatised partly because the government couldn't afford to make the investment in cleaning up potable water, the quality of which was deteriorating fast because of acid rain (remember that?). The water companies invested £billions in water treatment plants and did a good job. Sewage is more complicated. The companies inherited a flawed legacy pipe network. This is because we are one of the few countries that combine sewage and rain runoff in the same system. Now, with climate change and more flooding the systems get overloaded. The cost of a modified sewage system is horrendous running into £100's billions. The question is, who pays and how? It is not a suprise that we are in this situation, is it? The problem has not been successfully managed. In fact, it could be argued that a crisis has been engineered such that management walks away and both the taxpayer and final shareholders are left to pay the bill. Yep and saying “govt couldn’t afford it” is really a bit of a misnomer. The Thatcher Govt chose not to address this (they could have issued bonds to finance it) and instead wanted to make it someone else’s problem but sweetened the deal by writing off all existing debt. The new shareholders and execs then decided to milk the cow (taking our huge dividends) for several years rather than actually properly tackling the investment requirements! Bonds to finance it. Have you seen how much the new super sewer cost? Remember they wiped out 5bn debt or whatever was held. Let alone actually making improvements. It's not just the thatcher government though as we all know. These waterworks and sewers were created in the 1800s by private companies almost 150 years untouched. Yeah bonds. A bit like 30s USA to pull out of the depression and create employment with huge infrastructure projects. Yep but by the 1930s (I think need to check) Govts realised that things essential for life and public health maybe ought to be owned and controlled by the state in behalf of the people. I doubt anyone is disputing that subsequent govts (on both sides) failed to suitably invest. So clearly private sector investors were sold a turkey BUT short term gain/greed meant they could front load huge dividend payments and only now are we seeing the real consequence. I'm not sure whay short term gain and greed you are referring to. As even in some of the bigger dividends. 10p a share in the first year wasn't a big payout. I absolutely agree. They were sold a turkey. They were asked to improve leaks.tbey did this. Then more and more stringent policies were put in place. Monitoring effluent, not discharging, investment to stop discharging a population thay grew faster than out drains could cope with due tonpoor immigration policies. All funded by investors who were sold a turkey. Poor from ll governments not to help subsidise any of the new requirements from operations. But NOT all funded by investors. THAT is the point. The majority was funded by debt and they are doing it again and passing cost on to consumers. Why did they need to lay £57bn in dividends since privatisation? Why not £27bn and invest £30bn? They chose to pay out to shareholders early doors. The smart (thieving) ones have taken their money and run. The ones who are left hold the turkey that used to be a golden goose!" Can we just keep this to Thames. You jump between Thames and the all water companies. Please stick with one argument.either use Thames water or use all water companies. | |||
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"I used to work in the Water Industry (amongst others). The industry was privatised partly because the government couldn't afford to make the investment in cleaning up potable water, the quality of which was deteriorating fast because of acid rain (remember that?). The water companies invested £billions in water treatment plants and did a good job. Sewage is more complicated. The companies inherited a flawed legacy pipe network. This is because we are one of the few countries that combine sewage and rain runoff in the same system. Now, with climate change and more flooding the systems get overloaded. The cost of a modified sewage system is horrendous running into £100's billions. The question is, who pays and how? It is not a suprise that we are in this situation, is it? The problem has not been successfully managed. In fact, it could be argued that a crisis has been engineered such that management walks away and both the taxpayer and final shareholders are left to pay the bill. Not sure about surprise, but there were two unforeseens 1) climate change and 2) sudden hike in interest rates. The money borrowed for 1) was crippling when 2) happened. As for management, they've probably over-egged their bonuses to the tune of £millions but frankly the problem we face is £billions. Climate change was not unforseen. It has been talked about for decades. Ignored yes. Lampooned yes. Briefed against by well funded lobby groups like Tufton St yes. " At the time of privatisation the big worry was acid rain (you never hear it mentioned these days). Water companies factored-in costs for water treatment plants accordingly. What wasn't foreseen was annual flooding that overwhelms sewage plants and causes sewage discharges. | |||
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"@_irldn I discussed investment yesterday. What you are comparing are 2 different timeliness. Investors expect returns. Early on they ere simply asked to repair the leaks. They did this I gave you these leak improvement numbers in the other thread a few weeks back. In the 90s. Then suddenly other monitoring and sewage improvements were required. The tunnelling and cost of a new super sewer inmlondon began in 2018. To go live in 2025. At a cost of 4.5bn this was just 1 new tunnel...let alone the cost of mai tenancy of old tunnels and I frastructure improvements Looking at some of the account of suppliers across uk in their most recent account without creating new sewers. So.e of their maintenance projects om an annual basis are costing up to 1bn per annum. You can easily keep this cash in a business infact it works against you. I am only looking at some of the main parents as some subsidiaries don't fall under the hierarchy. There will be occasions where I agree. Particularly in Thames I think they got bought out in 2007 a d a large dividend was unnecessarily paid. But this steams from a literal 150 year of underfunding and lack of government long term policy. As with everything. " So the investors failed to undertake due diligence or appropriately forward plan investment requirements (ie they knew they were taking on a Victorian network so maybe should have considered risk/reward). So they were sold a turkey but are themselves culpable. There is no denying they overpaid dividends and should have ensured they had a “war chest” for the necessary future investment. | |||
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"I used to work in the Water Industry (amongst others). The industry was privatised partly because the government couldn't afford to make the investment in cleaning up potable water, the quality of which was deteriorating fast because of acid rain (remember that?). The water companies invested £billions in water treatment plants and did a good job. Sewage is more complicated. The companies inherited a flawed legacy pipe network. This is because we are one of the few countries that combine sewage and rain runoff in the same system. Now, with climate change and more flooding the systems get overloaded. The cost of a modified sewage system is horrendous running into £100's billions. The question is, who pays and how? It is not a suprise that we are in this situation, is it? The problem has not been successfully managed. In fact, it could be argued that a crisis has been engineered such that management walks away and both the taxpayer and final shareholders are left to pay the bill. Yep and saying “govt couldn’t afford it” is really a bit of a misnomer. The Thatcher Govt chose not to address this (they could have issued bonds to finance it) and instead wanted to make it someone else’s problem but sweetened the deal by writing off all existing debt. The new shareholders and execs then decided to milk the cow (taking our huge dividends) for several years rather than actually properly tackling the investment requirements! Bonds to finance it. Have you seen how much the new super sewer cost? Remember they wiped out 5bn debt or whatever was held. Let alone actually making improvements. It's not just the thatcher government though as we all know. These waterworks and sewers were created in the 1800s by private companies almost 150 years untouched. Yeah bonds. A bit like 30s USA to pull out of the depression and create employment with huge infrastructure projects. Yep but by the 1930s (I think need to check) Govts realised that things essential for life and public health maybe ought to be owned and controlled by the state in behalf of the people. I doubt anyone is disputing that subsequent govts (on both sides) failed to suitably invest. So clearly private sector investors were sold a turkey BUT short term gain/greed meant they could front load huge dividend payments and only now are we seeing the real consequence. I'm not sure whay short term gain and greed you are referring to. As even in some of the bigger dividends. 10p a share in the first year wasn't a big payout. I absolutely agree. They were sold a turkey. They were asked to improve leaks.tbey did this. Then more and more stringent policies were put in place. Monitoring effluent, not discharging, investment to stop discharging a population thay grew faster than out drains could cope with due tonpoor immigration policies. All funded by investors who were sold a turkey. Poor from ll governments not to help subsidise any of the new requirements from operations. But NOT all funded by investors. THAT is the point. The majority was funded by debt and they are doing it again and passing cost on to consumers. Why did they need to lay £57bn in dividends since privatisation? Why not £27bn and invest £30bn? They chose to pay out to shareholders early doors. The smart (thieving) ones have taken their money and run. The ones who are left hold the turkey that used to be a golden goose! Can we just keep this to Thames. You jump between Thames and the all water companies. Please stick with one argument.either use Thames water or use all water companies. " No because my OP had two paragraphs. One was the announcement on Thames Water and the other was context on the wider industry sector. | |||
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"I used to work in the Water Industry (amongst others). The industry was privatised partly because the government couldn't afford to make the investment in cleaning up potable water, the quality of which was deteriorating fast because of acid rain (remember that?). The water companies invested £billions in water treatment plants and did a good job. Sewage is more complicated. The companies inherited a flawed legacy pipe network. This is because we are one of the few countries that combine sewage and rain runoff in the same system. Now, with climate change and more flooding the systems get overloaded. The cost of a modified sewage system is horrendous running into £100's billions. The question is, who pays and how? It is not a suprise that we are in this situation, is it? The problem has not been successfully managed. In fact, it could be argued that a crisis has been engineered such that management walks away and both the taxpayer and final shareholders are left to pay the bill. Not sure about surprise, but there were two unforeseens 1) climate change and 2) sudden hike in interest rates. The money borrowed for 1) was crippling when 2) happened. As for management, they've probably over-egged their bonuses to the tune of £millions but frankly the problem we face is £billions. Climate change was not unforseen. It has been talked about for decades. Ignored yes. Lampooned yes. Briefed against by well funded lobby groups like Tufton St yes. At the time of privatisation the big worry was acid rain (you never hear it mentioned these days). Water companies factored-in costs for water treatment plants accordingly. What wasn't foreseen was annual flooding that overwhelms sewage plants and causes sewage discharges. " Small violin playing. Insufficient impact assessment work carried out and weak risk and issues monitoring. Execs too busy counting their bonuses and share options. | |||
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"Climate change was not unforseen. It has been talked about for decades. Ignored yes. Lampooned yes. Briefed against by well funded lobby groups like Tufton St yes. In the 1970s, the climate change that everyone was worried about was the predicted imminent ice age. You can see why a sudden change to predicted overheating wasn't listened to by most people in the 80s and 90s." I guess. I’m too young (don’t say that often) to know and can only go on what I read. The 80s was all Sting bring ridiculed over the rain forests and the hole in the ozone right? | |||
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"@_irldn I discussed investment yesterday. What you are comparing are 2 different timeliness. Investors expect returns. Early on they ere simply asked to repair the leaks. They did this I gave you these leak improvement numbers in the other thread a few weeks back. In the 90s. Then suddenly other monitoring and sewage improvements were required. The tunnelling and cost of a new super sewer inmlondon began in 2018. To go live in 2025. At a cost of 4.5bn this was just 1 new tunnel...let alone the cost of mai tenancy of old tunnels and I frastructure improvements Looking at some of the account of suppliers across uk in their most recent account without creating new sewers. So.e of their maintenance projects om an annual basis are costing up to 1bn per annum. You can easily keep this cash in a business infact it works against you. I am only looking at some of the main parents as some subsidiaries don't fall under the hierarchy. There will be occasions where I agree. Particularly in Thames I think they got bought out in 2007 a d a large dividend was unnecessarily paid. But this steams from a literal 150 year of underfunding and lack of government long term policy. As with everything. So the investors failed to undertake due diligence or appropriately forward plan investment requirements (ie they knew they were taking on a Victorian network so maybe should have considered risk/reward). So they were sold a turkey but are themselves culpable. There is no denying they overpaid dividends and should have ensured they had a “war chest” for the necessary future investment." Yes you're right. They should have known John major would take the uk into the e.u without a vote in 93.. then the e.u some 10 years later would enforce a sewer directive. Then that directive would cost 100s of billions to implement. How could investors I'm the 80s not know what people 20 years into the future were thinking...fools. | |||
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"I used to work in the Water Industry (amongst others). The industry was privatised partly because the government couldn't afford to make the investment in cleaning up potable water, the quality of which was deteriorating fast because of acid rain (remember that?). The water companies invested £billions in water treatment plants and did a good job. Sewage is more complicated. The companies inherited a flawed legacy pipe network. This is because we are one of the few countries that combine sewage and rain runoff in the same system. Now, with climate change and more flooding the systems get overloaded. The cost of a modified sewage system is horrendous running into £100's billions. The question is, who pays and how? It is not a suprise that we are in this situation, is it? The problem has not been successfully managed. In fact, it could be argued that a crisis has been engineered such that management walks away and both the taxpayer and final shareholders are left to pay the bill. Not sure about surprise, but there were two unforeseens 1) climate change and 2) sudden hike in interest rates. The money borrowed for 1) was crippling when 2) happened. As for management, they've probably over-egged their bonuses to the tune of £millions but frankly the problem we face is £billions. Climate change was not unforseen. It has been talked about for decades. Ignored yes. Lampooned yes. Briefed against by well funded lobby groups like Tufton St yes. At the time of privatisation the big worry was acid rain (you never hear it mentioned these days). Water companies factored-in costs for water treatment plants accordingly. What wasn't foreseen was annual flooding that overwhelms sewage plants and causes sewage discharges. Small violin playing. Insufficient impact assessment work carried out and weak risk and issues monitoring. Execs too busy counting their bonuses and share options." I'm suspecting you don't understand how business works. You can only plan for quantifiable risks. Unforeseens are just that - unforeseen. Or do you have a magic crystal ball? | |||
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"I used to work in the Water Industry (amongst others). The industry was privatised partly because the government couldn't afford to make the investment in cleaning up potable water, the quality of which was deteriorating fast because of acid rain (remember that?). The water companies invested £billions in water treatment plants and did a good job. Sewage is more complicated. The companies inherited a flawed legacy pipe network. This is because we are one of the few countries that combine sewage and rain runoff in the same system. Now, with climate change and more flooding the systems get overloaded. The cost of a modified sewage system is horrendous running into £100's billions. The question is, who pays and how? It is not a suprise that we are in this situation, is it? The problem has not been successfully managed. In fact, it could be argued that a crisis has been engineered such that management walks away and both the taxpayer and final shareholders are left to pay the bill. Not sure about surprise, but there were two unforeseens 1) climate change and 2) sudden hike in interest rates. The money borrowed for 1) was crippling when 2) happened. As for management, they've probably over-egged their bonuses to the tune of £millions but frankly the problem we face is £billions. Climate change was not unforseen. It has been talked about for decades. Ignored yes. Lampooned yes. Briefed against by well funded lobby groups like Tufton St yes. At the time of privatisation the big worry was acid rain (you never hear it mentioned these days). Water companies factored-in costs for water treatment plants accordingly. What wasn't foreseen was annual flooding that overwhelms sewage plants and causes sewage discharges. Small violin playing. Insufficient impact assessment work carried out and weak risk and issues monitoring. Execs too busy counting their bonuses and share options. I'm suspecting you don't understand how business works. You can only plan for quantifiable risks. Unforeseens are just that - unforeseen. Or do you have a magic crystal ball?" Actually I do. I have sold two successful start ups. Have a lucrative consultancy business and a portfolio of NED roles. When budgeting for future investment you should ensure you take account of optimism bias. These investors were buying into utilities and should have been more conservative. They KNEW they were buying a century old sewage and water network. What did they think was going to happen? But the shortermist greedy piggies took as much out of the business as possible early doors without planning ahead. NOTHING forced them to pay £57bn in dividends. They could have halved that and invested the rest. They didn’t and instead needed to fund investment through debt. I bet many of the people supporting the water companies, their privatisation and excusing their poor management practices are the same people who criticise homeowners who took out mortgages they couldn’t afford once interest rates started rising! | |||
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"I used to work in the Water Industry (amongst others). The industry was privatised partly because the government couldn't afford to make the investment in cleaning up potable water, the quality of which was deteriorating fast because of acid rain (remember that?). The water companies invested £billions in water treatment plants and did a good job. Sewage is more complicated. The companies inherited a flawed legacy pipe network. This is because we are one of the few countries that combine sewage and rain runoff in the same system. Now, with climate change and more flooding the systems get overloaded. The cost of a modified sewage system is horrendous running into £100's billions. The question is, who pays and how? It is not a suprise that we are in this situation, is it? The problem has not been successfully managed. In fact, it could be argued that a crisis has been engineered such that management walks away and both the taxpayer and final shareholders are left to pay the bill. Not sure about surprise, but there were two unforeseens 1) climate change and 2) sudden hike in interest rates. The money borrowed for 1) was crippling when 2) happened. As for management, they've probably over-egged their bonuses to the tune of £millions but frankly the problem we face is £billions. Climate change was not unforseen. It has been talked about for decades. Ignored yes. Lampooned yes. Briefed against by well funded lobby groups like Tufton St yes. At the time of privatisation the big worry was acid rain (you never hear it mentioned these days). Water companies factored-in costs for water treatment plants accordingly. What wasn't foreseen was annual flooding that overwhelms sewage plants and causes sewage discharges. Small violin playing. Insufficient impact assessment work carried out and weak risk and issues monitoring. Execs too busy counting their bonuses and share options. I'm suspecting you don't understand how business works. You can only plan for quantifiable risks. Unforeseens are just that - unforeseen. Or do you have a magic crystal ball? Actually I do. I have sold two successful start ups. Have a lucrative consultancy business and a portfolio of NED roles. When budgeting for future investment you should ensure you take account of optimism bias. These investors were buying into utilities and should have been more conservative. They KNEW they were buying a century old sewage and water network. What did they think was going to happen? But the shortermist greedy piggies took as much out of the business as possible early doors without planning ahead. NOTHING forced them to pay £57bn in dividends. They could have halved that and invested the rest. They didn’t and instead needed to fund investment through debt. I bet many of the people supporting the water companies, their privatisation and excusing their poor management practices are the same people who criticise homeowners who took out mortgages they couldn’t afford once interest rates started rising! " Again, that's not how business works. A company can only plan and cost for what it knows. No company will take on unquantified risk and responsibilities, it just isn't done. If they did, directors would disqualified and sued for neglect of duties. | |||
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"The government has begun drawing up contingency plans for the collapse of Thames Water amid growing doubts in Whitehall about the ability of Britain’s biggest water company to service its £14bn debt-pile. Thames Water's announcement follows reports that the UK's privatised water and sewage companies paid £1.4bn in dividends in 2022, up from £540m the previous year. Years of high dividend payments with low investment. Once services deteriorated to the point that the regulator stepped in, investment was paid with low cost debt and dividends still paid. Now that interest rates have gone up, the debt can no longer be serviced and profits are finally getting gobbled up. Greed combined with poor governance. The public sector can only suffer from one of these two. What low investment aorry? And what high dividends If we take Thames water as an example What dividends were taken out each year from privatisation and what was the low investment? This runs counter intuitive to the costs of effluent monitoring,the decrease in leaks etc. £7.2bn in dividends since 1990. Front loaded. £14.3bn in debt since 1990. Heavily rear loaded. Debt ramped up as the consequences of lack of investment became more apparent. Regardless, investment was delayed and then paid through raising huge amounts of debt whilst dividends were being paid out. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jun/30/in-charts-how-privatisation-drained-thames-waters-coffers This does not run "counter-intuitive" to anything. What does whoever you are repeating on Twitter say? Just quote it. It's far easier than you repeating something that you don't understand. So then the dividends were paid quite early on, before government began fining and demanding better quality vs when it was publicly owned. And not so much in the back end years. Debt isn't investment. " The biggest extraction of dividends was just before the 2000 EU Water Framework Directive was introduced. The second biggest extraction came before the Bathing Water Directive was introduced in 2006. Curious coincidence. Nobody said that debt was the same as investment. What was it needed for, do you think? You believe that they were using debt to fund operational expenditure and not capital investment whilst extracting "profit"? Interesting business model. If they didn't know that they were failing to deliver on their duties until they were fined, then they were mismanaged. If they didn't know that they would have additional performance requirements and therefore costs then they were mismanaged. Just quote your Twitter argument as what you are writing is just rambling. | |||
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"I used to work in the Water Industry (amongst others). The industry was privatised partly because the government couldn't afford to make the investment in cleaning up potable water, the quality of which was deteriorating fast because of acid rain (remember that?). The water companies invested £billions in water treatment plants and did a good job. Sewage is more complicated. The companies inherited a flawed legacy pipe network. This is because we are one of the few countries that combine sewage and rain runoff in the same system. Now, with climate change and more flooding the systems get overloaded. The cost of a modified sewage system is horrendous running into £100's billions. The question is, who pays and how? It is not a suprise that we are in this situation, is it? The problem has not been successfully managed. In fact, it could be argued that a crisis has been engineered such that management walks away and both the taxpayer and final shareholders are left to pay the bill. Not sure about surprise, but there were two unforeseens 1) climate change and 2) sudden hike in interest rates. The money borrowed for 1) was crippling when 2) happened. As for management, they've probably over-egged their bonuses to the tune of £millions but frankly the problem we face is £billions. Climate change was not unforseen. It has been talked about for decades. Ignored yes. Lampooned yes. Briefed against by well funded lobby groups like Tufton St yes. At the time of privatisation the big worry was acid rain (you never hear it mentioned these days). Water companies factored-in costs for water treatment plants accordingly. What wasn't foreseen was annual flooding that overwhelms sewage plants and causes sewage discharges. Small violin playing. Insufficient impact assessment work carried out and weak risk and issues monitoring. Execs too busy counting their bonuses and share options. I'm suspecting you don't understand how business works. You can only plan for quantifiable risks. Unforeseens are just that - unforeseen. Or do you have a magic crystal ball? Actually I do. I have sold two successful start ups. Have a lucrative consultancy business and a portfolio of NED roles. When budgeting for future investment you should ensure you take account of optimism bias. These investors were buying into utilities and should have been more conservative. They KNEW they were buying a century old sewage and water network. What did they think was going to happen? But the shortermist greedy piggies took as much out of the business as possible early doors without planning ahead. NOTHING forced them to pay £57bn in dividends. They could have halved that and invested the rest. They didn’t and instead needed to fund investment through debt. I bet many of the people supporting the water companies, their privatisation and excusing their poor management practices are the same people who criticise homeowners who took out mortgages they couldn’t afford once interest rates started rising! Again, that's not how business works. A company can only plan and cost for what it knows. No company will take on unquantified risk and responsibilities, it just isn't done. If they did, directors would disqualified and sued for neglect of duties." They knew what was coming in 2000 and 2006. That's why they extracted such huge profits and loaded more debt to pay the new requirements. | |||
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"The government has begun drawing up contingency plans for the collapse of Thames Water amid growing doubts in Whitehall about the ability of Britain’s biggest water company to service its £14bn debt-pile. Thames Water's announcement follows reports that the UK's privatised water and sewage companies paid £1.4bn in dividends in 2022, up from £540m the previous year. Years of high dividend payments with low investment. Once services deteriorated to the point that the regulator stepped in, investment was paid with low cost debt and dividends still paid. Now that interest rates have gone up, the debt can no longer be serviced and profits are finally getting gobbled up. Greed combined with poor governance. The public sector can only suffer from one of these two. What low investment aorry? And what high dividends If we take Thames water as an example What dividends were taken out each year from privatisation and what was the low investment? This runs counter intuitive to the costs of effluent monitoring,the decrease in leaks etc. £7.2bn in dividends since 1990. Front loaded. £14.3bn in debt since 1990. Heavily rear loaded. Debt ramped up as the consequences of lack of investment became more apparent. Regardless, investment was delayed and then paid through raising huge amounts of debt whilst dividends were being paid out. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jun/30/in-charts-how-privatisation-drained-thames-waters-coffers This does not run "counter-intuitive" to anything. What does whoever you are repeating on Twitter say? Just quote it. It's far easier than you repeating something that you don't understand. So then the dividends were paid quite early on, before government began fining and demanding better quality vs when it was publicly owned. And not so much in the back end years. Debt isn't investment. The biggest extraction of dividends was just before the 2000 EU Water Framework Directive was introduced. The second biggest extraction came before the Bathing Water Directive was introduced in 2006. Curious coincidence. Nobody said that debt was the same as investment. What was it needed for, do you think? You believe that they were using debt to fund operational expenditure and not capital investment whilst extracting "profit"? Interesting business model. If they didn't know that they were failing to deliver on their duties until they were fined, then they were mismanaged. If they didn't know that they would have additional performance requirements and therefore costs then they were mismanaged. Just quote your Twitter argument as what you are writing is just rambling." They were bought in 2006 its ell noted maquarie tried recouping some of their investment Immediately. In 2000 they released the dividend 9 months before the Directive In 2 of the 3 prior years before that the dividends were paid out at higher than 600m The implementation date for the Directive was 3 years later. Thames water was bought by RWE in 2000 Which was likely more of an influence again s they recovered some of the investment funds. You said they hadn't invested enough. I was wanting you to prove whay they've invested. You for some reason mentioned debt. | |||
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"I used to work in the Water Industry (amongst others). The industry was privatised partly because the government couldn't afford to make the investment in cleaning up potable water, the quality of which was deteriorating fast because of acid rain (remember that?). The water companies invested £billions in water treatment plants and did a good job. Sewage is more complicated. The companies inherited a flawed legacy pipe network. This is because we are one of the few countries that combine sewage and rain runoff in the same system. Now, with climate change and more flooding the systems get overloaded. The cost of a modified sewage system is horrendous running into £100's billions. The question is, who pays and how? It is not a suprise that we are in this situation, is it? The problem has not been successfully managed. In fact, it could be argued that a crisis has been engineered such that management walks away and both the taxpayer and final shareholders are left to pay the bill. Not sure about surprise, but there were two unforeseens 1) climate change and 2) sudden hike in interest rates. The money borrowed for 1) was crippling when 2) happened. As for management, they've probably over-egged their bonuses to the tune of £millions but frankly the problem we face is £billions. Climate change was not unforseen. It has been talked about for decades. Ignored yes. Lampooned yes. Briefed against by well funded lobby groups like Tufton St yes. At the time of privatisation the big worry was acid rain (you never hear it mentioned these days). Water companies factored-in costs for water treatment plants accordingly. What wasn't foreseen was annual flooding that overwhelms sewage plants and causes sewage discharges. Small violin playing. Insufficient impact assessment work carried out and weak risk and issues monitoring. Execs too busy counting their bonuses and share options. I'm suspecting you don't understand how business works. You can only plan for quantifiable risks. Unforeseens are just that - unforeseen. Or do you have a magic crystal ball? Actually I do. I have sold two successful start ups. Have a lucrative consultancy business and a portfolio of NED roles. When budgeting for future investment you should ensure you take account of optimism bias. These investors were buying into utilities and should have been more conservative. They KNEW they were buying a century old sewage and water network. What did they think was going to happen? But the shortermist greedy piggies took as much out of the business as possible early doors without planning ahead. NOTHING forced them to pay £57bn in dividends. They could have halved that and invested the rest. They didn’t and instead needed to fund investment through debt. I bet many of the people supporting the water companies, their privatisation and excusing their poor management practices are the same people who criticise homeowners who took out mortgages they couldn’t afford once interest rates started rising! Again, that's not how business works. A company can only plan and cost for what it knows. No company will take on unquantified risk and responsibilities, it just isn't done. If they did, directors would disqualified and sued for neglect of duties. They knew what was coming in 2000 and 2006. That's why they extracted such huge profits and loaded more debt to pay the new requirements." Both years you quote. The company was sold to other investors. | |||
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"The government has begun drawing up contingency plans for the collapse of Thames Water amid growing doubts in Whitehall about the ability of Britain’s biggest water company to service its £14bn debt-pile. Thames Water's announcement follows reports that the UK's privatised water and sewage companies paid £1.4bn in dividends in 2022, up from £540m the previous year. Years of high dividend payments with low investment. Once services deteriorated to the point that the regulator stepped in, investment was paid with low cost debt and dividends still paid. Now that interest rates have gone up, the debt can no longer be serviced and profits are finally getting gobbled up. Greed combined with poor governance. The public sector can only suffer from one of these two. What low investment aorry? And what high dividends If we take Thames water as an example What dividends were taken out each year from privatisation and what was the low investment? This runs counter intuitive to the costs of effluent monitoring,the decrease in leaks etc. £7.2bn in dividends since 1990. Front loaded. £14.3bn in debt since 1990. Heavily rear loaded. Debt ramped up as the consequences of lack of investment became more apparent. Regardless, investment was delayed and then paid through raising huge amounts of debt whilst dividends were being paid out. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jun/30/in-charts-how-privatisation-drained-thames-waters-coffers This does not run "counter-intuitive" to anything. What does whoever you are repeating on Twitter say? Just quote it. It's far easier than you repeating something that you don't understand. So then the dividends were paid quite early on, before government began fining and demanding better quality vs when it was publicly owned. And not so much in the back end years. Debt isn't investment. The biggest extraction of dividends was just before the 2000 EU Water Framework Directive was introduced. The second biggest extraction came before the Bathing Water Directive was introduced in 2006. Curious coincidence. Nobody said that debt was the same as investment. What was it needed for, do you think? You believe that they were using debt to fund operational expenditure and not capital investment whilst extracting "profit"? Interesting business model. If they didn't know that they were failing to deliver on their duties until they were fined, then they were mismanaged. If they didn't know that they would have additional performance requirements and therefore costs then they were mismanaged. Just quote your Twitter argument as what you are writing is just rambling. They were bought in 2006 its ell noted maquarie tried recouping some of their investment Immediately. In 2000 they released the dividend 9 months before the Directive In 2 of the 3 prior years before that the dividends were paid out at higher than 600m The implementation date for the Directive was 3 years later. Thames water was bought by RWE in 2000 Which was likely more of an influence again s they recovered some of the investment funds. You said they hadn't invested enough. I was wanting you to prove whay they've invested. You for some reason mentioned debt. " RWE bought Thames water after the bumper dividend payout. RWE sold Thames Water after the next bumper dividend payment. Both happened before the introduction of new regulations. You think that they did not know that the directive was coming and were not consulted? Incompetent management again if that were the case. The data is there, as is the fact that they are unable to service their debt now, as is the fact that they extracted profits and sold shares before new water regulations were implemented. I don't have to "prove" anything to you. If they weren't using debt to invest then it was to pay dividends or operational expenditure when they were aware that new regulations requiring more investment was needed. Just post the Tweet or article that you are trying to copy from, because it is just garbage so far. | |||
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"I used to work in the Water Industry (amongst others). The industry was privatised partly because the government couldn't afford to make the investment in cleaning up potable water, the quality of which was deteriorating fast because of acid rain (remember that?). The water companies invested £billions in water treatment plants and did a good job. Sewage is more complicated. The companies inherited a flawed legacy pipe network. This is because we are one of the few countries that combine sewage and rain runoff in the same system. Now, with climate change and more flooding the systems get overloaded. The cost of a modified sewage system is horrendous running into £100's billions. The question is, who pays and how? It is not a suprise that we are in this situation, is it? The problem has not been successfully managed. In fact, it could be argued that a crisis has been engineered such that management walks away and both the taxpayer and final shareholders are left to pay the bill. Not sure about surprise, but there were two unforeseens 1) climate change and 2) sudden hike in interest rates. The money borrowed for 1) was crippling when 2) happened. As for management, they've probably over-egged their bonuses to the tune of £millions but frankly the problem we face is £billions. Climate change was not unforseen. It has been talked about for decades. Ignored yes. Lampooned yes. Briefed against by well funded lobby groups like Tufton St yes. At the time of privatisation the big worry was acid rain (you never hear it mentioned these days). Water companies factored-in costs for water treatment plants accordingly. What wasn't foreseen was annual flooding that overwhelms sewage plants and causes sewage discharges. Small violin playing. Insufficient impact assessment work carried out and weak risk and issues monitoring. Execs too busy counting their bonuses and share options. I'm suspecting you don't understand how business works. You can only plan for quantifiable risks. Unforeseens are just that - unforeseen. Or do you have a magic crystal ball? Actually I do. I have sold two successful start ups. Have a lucrative consultancy business and a portfolio of NED roles. When budgeting for future investment you should ensure you take account of optimism bias. These investors were buying into utilities and should have been more conservative. They KNEW they were buying a century old sewage and water network. What did they think was going to happen? But the shortermist greedy piggies took as much out of the business as possible early doors without planning ahead. NOTHING forced them to pay £57bn in dividends. They could have halved that and invested the rest. They didn’t and instead needed to fund investment through debt. I bet many of the people supporting the water companies, their privatisation and excusing their poor management practices are the same people who criticise homeowners who took out mortgages they couldn’t afford once interest rates started rising! Again, that's not how business works. A company can only plan and cost for what it knows. No company will take on unquantified risk and responsibilities, it just isn't done. If they did, directors would disqualified and sued for neglect of duties." But it wasn’t unquantified risk. As Morley has pointed out, the majority of the water and sewage network in the UK dates back to Victorian times. Decades of neglect (or kicking the can down the road for someone else) meant it was inevitable that the system would need to be modernised. When Thatcher’s Govt decided to privatise, while they wiped out debt liabilities, the required future investment liabilities should have been known and explored by investors (so they knew what they were getting into). That is not unquantifiable risk! We will have to disagree that companies can inly plan for what they know. Good planning includes contingency for the unknown. In this case modernisation and the likelihood of new regulation was hardly unforseen! | |||
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"The government has begun drawing up contingency plans for the collapse of Thames Water amid growing doubts in Whitehall about the ability of Britain’s biggest water company to service its £14bn debt-pile. Thames Water's announcement follows reports that the UK's privatised water and sewage companies paid £1.4bn in dividends in 2022, up from £540m the previous year. Years of high dividend payments with low investment. Once services deteriorated to the point that the regulator stepped in, investment was paid with low cost debt and dividends still paid. Now that interest rates have gone up, the debt can no longer be serviced and profits are finally getting gobbled up. Greed combined with poor governance. The public sector can only suffer from one of these two. What low investment aorry? And what high dividends If we take Thames water as an example What dividends were taken out each year from privatisation and what was the low investment? This runs counter intuitive to the costs of effluent monitoring,the decrease in leaks etc. £7.2bn in dividends since 1990. Front loaded. £14.3bn in debt since 1990. Heavily rear loaded. Debt ramped up as the consequences of lack of investment became more apparent. Regardless, investment was delayed and then paid through raising huge amounts of debt whilst dividends were being paid out. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jun/30/in-charts-how-privatisation-drained-thames-waters-coffers This does not run "counter-intuitive" to anything. What does whoever you are repeating on Twitter say? Just quote it. It's far easier than you repeating something that you don't understand. So then the dividends were paid quite early on, before government began fining and demanding better quality vs when it was publicly owned. And not so much in the back end years. Debt isn't investment. The biggest extraction of dividends was just before the 2000 EU Water Framework Directive was introduced. The second biggest extraction came before the Bathing Water Directive was introduced in 2006. Curious coincidence. Nobody said that debt was the same as investment. What was it needed for, do you think? You believe that they were using debt to fund operational expenditure and not capital investment whilst extracting "profit"? Interesting business model. If they didn't know that they were failing to deliver on their duties until they were fined, then they were mismanaged. If they didn't know that they would have additional performance requirements and therefore costs then they were mismanaged. Just quote your Twitter argument as what you are writing is just rambling. They were bought in 2006 its ell noted maquarie tried recouping some of their investment Immediately. In 2000 they released the dividend 9 months before the Directive In 2 of the 3 prior years before that the dividends were paid out at higher than 600m The implementation date for the Directive was 3 years later. Thames water was bought by RWE in 2000 Which was likely more of an influence again s they recovered some of the investment funds. You said they hadn't invested enough. I was wanting you to prove whay they've invested. You for some reason mentioned debt. RWE bought Thames water after the bumper dividend payout. RWE sold Thames Water after the next bumper dividend payment. Both happened before the introduction of new regulations. You think that they did not know that the directive was coming and were not consulted? Incompetent management again if that were the case. The data is there, as is the fact that they are unable to service their debt now, as is the fact that they extracted profits and sold shares before new water regulations were implemented. I don't have to "prove" anything to you. If they weren't using debt to invest then it was to pay dividends or operational expenditure when they were aware that new regulations requiring more investment was needed. Just post the Tweet or article that you are trying to copy from, because it is just garbage so far." Apologies on the above I got my articles mixed up. The dividend was paid in 96 and 98 of 600m or more then 800m in 1999 prior to the takeover of rwe pushing up share price. The dividend would have been paid to increase the takeover price being paid to the shareholders( and management) I'm not entirely sure how you reconcile the 96 and 98 dividends on the e.u waters act. Would you care to explain? The other takeover I can see why the dividend was paid out after the takeover I'm not entirely sure where you've got the idea for this paying dividends before the implementation of water stuff comes from...maybe you can share your conspiracy sites? Given that the dividends were paid out before hand? | |||
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"The government has begun drawing up contingency plans for the collapse of Thames Water amid growing doubts in Whitehall about the ability of Britain’s biggest water company to service its £14bn debt-pile. Thames Water's announcement follows reports that the UK's privatised water and sewage companies paid £1.4bn in dividends in 2022, up from £540m the previous year. Years of high dividend payments with low investment. Once services deteriorated to the point that the regulator stepped in, investment was paid with low cost debt and dividends still paid. Now that interest rates have gone up, the debt can no longer be serviced and profits are finally getting gobbled up. Greed combined with poor governance. The public sector can only suffer from one of these two. What low investment aorry? And what high dividends If we take Thames water as an example What dividends were taken out each year from privatisation and what was the low investment? This runs counter intuitive to the costs of effluent monitoring,the decrease in leaks etc. £7.2bn in dividends since 1990. Front loaded. £14.3bn in debt since 1990. Heavily rear loaded. Debt ramped up as the consequences of lack of investment became more apparent. Regardless, investment was delayed and then paid through raising huge amounts of debt whilst dividends were being paid out. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jun/30/in-charts-how-privatisation-drained-thames-waters-coffers This does not run "counter-intuitive" to anything. What does whoever you are repeating on Twitter say? Just quote it. It's far easier than you repeating something that you don't understand. So then the dividends were paid quite early on, before government began fining and demanding better quality vs when it was publicly owned. And not so much in the back end years. Debt isn't investment. The biggest extraction of dividends was just before the 2000 EU Water Framework Directive was introduced. The second biggest extraction came before the Bathing Water Directive was introduced in 2006. Curious coincidence. Nobody said that debt was the same as investment. What was it needed for, do you think? You believe that they were using debt to fund operational expenditure and not capital investment whilst extracting "profit"? Interesting business model. If they didn't know that they were failing to deliver on their duties until they were fined, then they were mismanaged. If they didn't know that they would have additional performance requirements and therefore costs then they were mismanaged. Just quote your Twitter argument as what you are writing is just rambling. They were bought in 2006 its ell noted maquarie tried recouping some of their investment Immediately. In 2000 they released the dividend 9 months before the Directive In 2 of the 3 prior years before that the dividends were paid out at higher than 600m The implementation date for the Directive was 3 years later. Thames water was bought by RWE in 2000 Which was likely more of an influence again s they recovered some of the investment funds. You said they hadn't invested enough. I was wanting you to prove whay they've invested. You for some reason mentioned debt. RWE bought Thames water after the bumper dividend payout. RWE sold Thames Water after the next bumper dividend payment. Both happened before the introduction of new regulations. You think that they did not know that the directive was coming and were not consulted? Incompetent management again if that were the case. The data is there, as is the fact that they are unable to service their debt now, as is the fact that they extracted profits and sold shares before new water regulations were implemented. I don't have to "prove" anything to you. If they weren't using debt to invest then it was to pay dividends or operational expenditure when they were aware that new regulations requiring more investment was needed. Just post the Tweet or article that you are trying to copy from, because it is just garbage so far. Apologies on the above I got my articles mixed up. The dividend was paid in 96 and 98 of 600m or more then 800m in 1999 prior to the takeover of rwe pushing up share price. The dividend would have been paid to increase the takeover price being paid to the shareholders( and management) I'm not entirely sure how you reconcile the 96 and 98 dividends on the e.u waters act. Would you care to explain? The other takeover I can see why the dividend was paid out after the takeover I'm not entirely sure where you've got the idea for this paying dividends before the implementation of water stuff comes from...maybe you can share your conspiracy sites? Given that the dividends were paid out before hand? " You're quite right. The loans are owed to Thames Waters previous owners who extracted both loan payments and dividends. They weren't used to pay for investment. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66051555.amp There was no bid in okay for Thames Water when dividends were paid out. Do you think purchasers are so naive that they would believe that a one off payment meant that the company was inherently more valuable? I don't think that you're sure of anything much at all. The 1999 and 2007 dividend spikes both correlate with profits being extracted despite regulation changes that would require more investment. What are you actually arguing? That Thames Water has been well managed and they couldn't possibly have known that they needed to invest money to maintain their services to an adequate standard? | |||
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"The government has begun drawing up contingency plans for the collapse of Thames Water amid growing doubts in Whitehall about the ability of Britain’s biggest water company to service its £14bn debt-pile. Thames Water's announcement follows reports that the UK's privatised water and sewage companies paid £1.4bn in dividends in 2022, up from £540m the previous year. Years of high dividend payments with low investment. Once services deteriorated to the point that the regulator stepped in, investment was paid with low cost debt and dividends still paid. Now that interest rates have gone up, the debt can no longer be serviced and profits are finally getting gobbled up. Greed combined with poor governance. The public sector can only suffer from one of these two. What low investment aorry? And what high dividends If we take Thames water as an example What dividends were taken out each year from privatisation and what was the low investment? This runs counter intuitive to the costs of effluent monitoring,the decrease in leaks etc. £7.2bn in dividends since 1990. Front loaded. £14.3bn in debt since 1990. Heavily rear loaded. Debt ramped up as the consequences of lack of investment became more apparent. Regardless, investment was delayed and then paid through raising huge amounts of debt whilst dividends were being paid out. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jun/30/in-charts-how-privatisation-drained-thames-waters-coffers This does not run "counter-intuitive" to anything. What does whoever you are repeating on Twitter say? Just quote it. It's far easier than you repeating something that you don't understand. So then the dividends were paid quite early on, before government began fining and demanding better quality vs when it was publicly owned. And not so much in the back end years. Debt isn't investment. The biggest extraction of dividends was just before the 2000 EU Water Framework Directive was introduced. The second biggest extraction came before the Bathing Water Directive was introduced in 2006. Curious coincidence. Nobody said that debt was the same as investment. What was it needed for, do you think? You believe that they were using debt to fund operational expenditure and not capital investment whilst extracting "profit"? Interesting business model. If they didn't know that they were failing to deliver on their duties until they were fined, then they were mismanaged. If they didn't know that they would have additional performance requirements and therefore costs then they were mismanaged. Just quote your Twitter argument as what you are writing is just rambling. They were bought in 2006 its ell noted maquarie tried recouping some of their investment Immediately. In 2000 they released the dividend 9 months before the Directive In 2 of the 3 prior years before that the dividends were paid out at higher than 600m The implementation date for the Directive was 3 years later. Thames water was bought by RWE in 2000 Which was likely more of an influence again s they recovered some of the investment funds. You said they hadn't invested enough. I was wanting you to prove whay they've invested. You for some reason mentioned debt. RWE bought Thames water after the bumper dividend payout. RWE sold Thames Water after the next bumper dividend payment. Both happened before the introduction of new regulations. You think that they did not know that the directive was coming and were not consulted? Incompetent management again if that were the case. The data is there, as is the fact that they are unable to service their debt now, as is the fact that they extracted profits and sold shares before new water regulations were implemented. I don't have to "prove" anything to you. If they weren't using debt to invest then it was to pay dividends or operational expenditure when they were aware that new regulations requiring more investment was needed. Just post the Tweet or article that you are trying to copy from, because it is just garbage so far. Apologies on the above I got my articles mixed up. The dividend was paid in 96 and 98 of 600m or more then 800m in 1999 prior to the takeover of rwe pushing up share price. The dividend would have been paid to increase the takeover price being paid to the shareholders( and management) I'm not entirely sure how you reconcile the 96 and 98 dividends on the e.u waters act. Would you care to explain? The other takeover I can see why the dividend was paid out after the takeover I'm not entirely sure where you've got the idea for this paying dividends before the implementation of water stuff comes from...maybe you can share your conspiracy sites? Given that the dividends were paid out before hand? You're quite right. The loans are owed to Thames Waters previous owners who extracted both loan payments and dividends. They weren't used to pay for investment. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66051555.amp There was no bid in okay for Thames Water when dividends were paid out. Do you think purchasers are so naive that they would believe that a one off payment meant that the company was inherently more valuable? I don't think that you're sure of anything much at all. The 1999 and 2007 dividend spikes both correlate with profits being extracted despite regulation changes that would require more investment. What are you actually arguing? That Thames Water has been well managed and they couldn't possibly have known that they needed to invest money to maintain their services to an adequate standard?" Not sure where I mentioned loans. But typically after a purchase if further capital is injected from an owner it can be in the form of a loan. Takeovers and purchases dont happen in the blink of an eye. They can often take 2/3 years. It took 2 years for a plc company I worked for to be taken over. Board level discussions happen for years Look at the inbev merger by Miller October 2016 the first announcements were in 2015 Shares rose in 2014 on tbe rumours of it being in discussion. This is how the market works. If you think multi billion pound company is taken over in a day without formal notification and without board discussions etc... I jave a very very nice bridge to sell you easy uk | |||
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"The government has begun drawing up contingency plans for the collapse of Thames Water amid growing doubts in Whitehall about the ability of Britain’s biggest water company to service its £14bn debt-pile. Thames Water's announcement follows reports that the UK's privatised water and sewage companies paid £1.4bn in dividends in 2022, up from £540m the previous year. Years of high dividend payments with low investment. Once services deteriorated to the point that the regulator stepped in, investment was paid with low cost debt and dividends still paid. Now that interest rates have gone up, the debt can no longer be serviced and profits are finally getting gobbled up. Greed combined with poor governance. The public sector can only suffer from one of these two. What low investment aorry? And what high dividends If we take Thames water as an example What dividends were taken out each year from privatisation and what was the low investment? This runs counter intuitive to the costs of effluent monitoring,the decrease in leaks etc. £7.2bn in dividends since 1990. Front loaded. £14.3bn in debt since 1990. Heavily rear loaded. Debt ramped up as the consequences of lack of investment became more apparent. Regardless, investment was delayed and then paid through raising huge amounts of debt whilst dividends were being paid out. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jun/30/in-charts-how-privatisation-drained-thames-waters-coffers This does not run "counter-intuitive" to anything. What does whoever you are repeating on Twitter say? Just quote it. It's far easier than you repeating something that you don't understand. So then the dividends were paid quite early on, before government began fining and demanding better quality vs when it was publicly owned. And not so much in the back end years. Debt isn't investment. The biggest extraction of dividends was just before the 2000 EU Water Framework Directive was introduced. The second biggest extraction came before the Bathing Water Directive was introduced in 2006. Curious coincidence. Nobody said that debt was the same as investment. What was it needed for, do you think? You believe that they were using debt to fund operational expenditure and not capital investment whilst extracting "profit"? Interesting business model. If they didn't know that they were failing to deliver on their duties until they were fined, then they were mismanaged. If they didn't know that they would have additional performance requirements and therefore costs then they were mismanaged. Just quote your Twitter argument as what you are writing is just rambling. They were bought in 2006 its ell noted maquarie tried recouping some of their investment Immediately. In 2000 they released the dividend 9 months before the Directive In 2 of the 3 prior years before that the dividends were paid out at higher than 600m The implementation date for the Directive was 3 years later. Thames water was bought by RWE in 2000 Which was likely more of an influence again s they recovered some of the investment funds. You said they hadn't invested enough. I was wanting you to prove whay they've invested. You for some reason mentioned debt. RWE bought Thames water after the bumper dividend payout. RWE sold Thames Water after the next bumper dividend payment. Both happened before the introduction of new regulations. You think that they did not know that the directive was coming and were not consulted? Incompetent management again if that were the case. The data is there, as is the fact that they are unable to service their debt now, as is the fact that they extracted profits and sold shares before new water regulations were implemented. I don't have to "prove" anything to you. If they weren't using debt to invest then it was to pay dividends or operational expenditure when they were aware that new regulations requiring more investment was needed. Just post the Tweet or article that you are trying to copy from, because it is just garbage so far. Apologies on the above I got my articles mixed up. The dividend was paid in 96 and 98 of 600m or more then 800m in 1999 prior to the takeover of rwe pushing up share price. The dividend would have been paid to increase the takeover price being paid to the shareholders( and management) I'm not entirely sure how you reconcile the 96 and 98 dividends on the e.u waters act. Would you care to explain? The other takeover I can see why the dividend was paid out after the takeover I'm not entirely sure where you've got the idea for this paying dividends before the implementation of water stuff comes from...maybe you can share your conspiracy sites? Given that the dividends were paid out before hand? You're quite right. The loans are owed to Thames Waters previous owners who extracted both loan payments and dividends. They weren't used to pay for investment. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66051555.amp There was no bid in okay for Thames Water when dividends were paid out. Do you think purchasers are so naive that they would believe that a one off payment meant that the company was inherently more valuable? I don't think that you're sure of anything much at all. The 1999 and 2007 dividend spikes both correlate with profits being extracted despite regulation changes that would require more investment. What are you actually arguing? That Thames Water has been well managed and they couldn't possibly have known that they needed to invest money to maintain their services to an adequate standard?" The profit extractions coincide very very nicely with takeovers too. Takeovers happening a LOT more immediately than the implementation of protocols. If as _irldn says investor do their due diligence. They knkw tbe wager improvements were coming in 2003 It seems to me the dividends were there to help push up share prices. Not extract profit 3 years before an event then see that extraction drop to about 100m I tbe next 3 years. What's the benefit of extracting 800m in 1999( before a takeover in 2000) Vs Extracting 300m across 4 years before the implementation in 2003? | |||
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"^ regarding the above. Did other companies follow suit? Surely it makes sense all private companies do the exact same thing? If they all know this directive is coming?" Noz it doesn't. Different companies are managed by different people and have different shareholders. | |||
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"The government has begun drawing up contingency plans for the collapse of Thames Water amid growing doubts in Whitehall about the ability of Britain’s biggest water company to service its £14bn debt-pile. Thames Water's announcement follows reports that the UK's privatised water and sewage companies paid £1.4bn in dividends in 2022, up from £540m the previous year. Years of high dividend payments with low investment. Once services deteriorated to the point that the regulator stepped in, investment was paid with low cost debt and dividends still paid. Now that interest rates have gone up, the debt can no longer be serviced and profits are finally getting gobbled up. Greed combined with poor governance. The public sector can only suffer from one of these two. What low investment aorry? And what high dividends If we take Thames water as an example What dividends were taken out each year from privatisation and what was the low investment? This runs counter intuitive to the costs of effluent monitoring,the decrease in leaks etc. £7.2bn in dividends since 1990. Front loaded. £14.3bn in debt since 1990. Heavily rear loaded. Debt ramped up as the consequences of lack of investment became more apparent. Regardless, investment was delayed and then paid through raising huge amounts of debt whilst dividends were being paid out. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jun/30/in-charts-how-privatisation-drained-thames-waters-coffers This does not run "counter-intuitive" to anything. What does whoever you are repeating on Twitter say? Just quote it. It's far easier than you repeating something that you don't understand. So then the dividends were paid quite early on, before government began fining and demanding better quality vs when it was publicly owned. And not so much in the back end years. Debt isn't investment. The biggest extraction of dividends was just before the 2000 EU Water Framework Directive was introduced. The second biggest extraction came before the Bathing Water Directive was introduced in 2006. Curious coincidence. Nobody said that debt was the same as investment. What was it needed for, do you think? You believe that they were using debt to fund operational expenditure and not capital investment whilst extracting "profit"? Interesting business model. If they didn't know that they were failing to deliver on their duties until they were fined, then they were mismanaged. If they didn't know that they would have additional performance requirements and therefore costs then they were mismanaged. Just quote your Twitter argument as what you are writing is just rambling. They were bought in 2006 its ell noted maquarie tried recouping some of their investment Immediately. In 2000 they released the dividend 9 months before the Directive In 2 of the 3 prior years before that the dividends were paid out at higher than 600m The implementation date for the Directive was 3 years later. Thames water was bought by RWE in 2000 Which was likely more of an influence again s they recovered some of the investment funds. You said they hadn't invested enough. I was wanting you to prove whay they've invested. You for some reason mentioned debt. RWE bought Thames water after the bumper dividend payout. RWE sold Thames Water after the next bumper dividend payment. Both happened before the introduction of new regulations. You think that they did not know that the directive was coming and were not consulted? Incompetent management again if that were the case. The data is there, as is the fact that they are unable to service their debt now, as is the fact that they extracted profits and sold shares before new water regulations were implemented. I don't have to "prove" anything to you. If they weren't using debt to invest then it was to pay dividends or operational expenditure when they were aware that new regulations requiring more investment was needed. Just post the Tweet or article that you are trying to copy from, because it is just garbage so far. Apologies on the above I got my articles mixed up. The dividend was paid in 96 and 98 of 600m or more then 800m in 1999 prior to the takeover of rwe pushing up share price. The dividend would have been paid to increase the takeover price being paid to the shareholders( and management) I'm not entirely sure how you reconcile the 96 and 98 dividends on the e.u waters act. Would you care to explain? The other takeover I can see why the dividend was paid out after the takeover I'm not entirely sure where you've got the idea for this paying dividends before the implementation of water stuff comes from...maybe you can share your conspiracy sites? Given that the dividends were paid out before hand? You're quite right. The loans are owed to Thames Waters previous owners who extracted both loan payments and dividends. They weren't used to pay for investment. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66051555.amp There was no bid in okay for Thames Water when dividends were paid out. Do you think purchasers are so naive that they would believe that a one off payment meant that the company was inherently more valuable? I don't think that you're sure of anything much at all. The 1999 and 2007 dividend spikes both correlate with profits being extracted despite regulation changes that would require more investment. What are you actually arguing? That Thames Water has been well managed and they couldn't possibly have known that they needed to invest money to maintain their services to an adequate standard? The profit extractions coincide very very nicely with takeovers too. Takeovers happening a LOT more immediately than the implementation of protocols. If as _irldn says investor do their due diligence. They knkw tbe wager improvements were coming in 2003 It seems to me the dividends were there to help push up share prices. Not extract profit 3 years before an event then see that extraction drop to about 100m I tbe next 3 years. What's the benefit of extracting 800m in 1999( before a takeover in 2000) Vs Extracting 300m across 4 years before the implementation in 2003? " So the share price was "pushed up" in 1999 in anticipation of a sale in December 2000? Dividends do not extract profit? You do realise that in order to meet the standards in 2003 you have to invest up front, don't you? That is why implementation dates exist... | |||
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"The government has begun drawing up contingency plans for the collapse of Thames Water amid growing doubts in Whitehall about the ability of Britain’s biggest water company to service its £14bn debt-pile. Thames Water's announcement follows reports that the UK's privatised water and sewage companies paid £1.4bn in dividends in 2022, up from £540m the previous year. Years of high dividend payments with low investment. Once services deteriorated to the point that the regulator stepped in, investment was paid with low cost debt and dividends still paid. Now that interest rates have gone up, the debt can no longer be serviced and profits are finally getting gobbled up. Greed combined with poor governance. The public sector can only suffer from one of these two. What low investment aorry? And what high dividends If we take Thames water as an example What dividends were taken out each year from privatisation and what was the low investment? This runs counter intuitive to the costs of effluent monitoring,the decrease in leaks etc. £7.2bn in dividends since 1990. Front loaded. £14.3bn in debt since 1990. Heavily rear loaded. Debt ramped up as the consequences of lack of investment became more apparent. Regardless, investment was delayed and then paid through raising huge amounts of debt whilst dividends were being paid out. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jun/30/in-charts-how-privatisation-drained-thames-waters-coffers This does not run "counter-intuitive" to anything. What does whoever you are repeating on Twitter say? Just quote it. It's far easier than you repeating something that you don't understand. So then the dividends were paid quite early on, before government began fining and demanding better quality vs when it was publicly owned. And not so much in the back end years. Debt isn't investment. The biggest extraction of dividends was just before the 2000 EU Water Framework Directive was introduced. The second biggest extraction came before the Bathing Water Directive was introduced in 2006. Curious coincidence. Nobody said that debt was the same as investment. What was it needed for, do you think? You believe that they were using debt to fund operational expenditure and not capital investment whilst extracting "profit"? Interesting business model. If they didn't know that they were failing to deliver on their duties until they were fined, then they were mismanaged. If they didn't know that they would have additional performance requirements and therefore costs then they were mismanaged. Just quote your Twitter argument as what you are writing is just rambling. They were bought in 2006 its ell noted maquarie tried recouping some of their investment Immediately. In 2000 they released the dividend 9 months before the Directive In 2 of the 3 prior years before that the dividends were paid out at higher than 600m The implementation date for the Directive was 3 years later. Thames water was bought by RWE in 2000 Which was likely more of an influence again s they recovered some of the investment funds. You said they hadn't invested enough. I was wanting you to prove whay they've invested. You for some reason mentioned debt. RWE bought Thames water after the bumper dividend payout. RWE sold Thames Water after the next bumper dividend payment. Both happened before the introduction of new regulations. You think that they did not know that the directive was coming and were not consulted? Incompetent management again if that were the case. The data is there, as is the fact that they are unable to service their debt now, as is the fact that they extracted profits and sold shares before new water regulations were implemented. I don't have to "prove" anything to you. If they weren't using debt to invest then it was to pay dividends or operational expenditure when they were aware that new regulations requiring more investment was needed. Just post the Tweet or article that you are trying to copy from, because it is just garbage so far. Apologies on the above I got my articles mixed up. The dividend was paid in 96 and 98 of 600m or more then 800m in 1999 prior to the takeover of rwe pushing up share price. The dividend would have been paid to increase the takeover price being paid to the shareholders( and management) I'm not entirely sure how you reconcile the 96 and 98 dividends on the e.u waters act. Would you care to explain? The other takeover I can see why the dividend was paid out after the takeover I'm not entirely sure where you've got the idea for this paying dividends before the implementation of water stuff comes from...maybe you can share your conspiracy sites? Given that the dividends were paid out before hand? You're quite right. The loans are owed to Thames Waters previous owners who extracted both loan payments and dividends. They weren't used to pay for investment. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66051555.amp There was no bid in okay for Thames Water when dividends were paid out. Do you think purchasers are so naive that they would believe that a one off payment meant that the company was inherently more valuable? I don't think that you're sure of anything much at all. The 1999 and 2007 dividend spikes both correlate with profits being extracted despite regulation changes that would require more investment. What are you actually arguing? That Thames Water has been well managed and they couldn't possibly have known that they needed to invest money to maintain their services to an adequate standard? The profit extractions coincide very very nicely with takeovers too. Takeovers happening a LOT more immediately than the implementation of protocols. If as _irldn says investor do their due diligence. They knkw tbe wager improvements were coming in 2003 It seems to me the dividends were there to help push up share prices. Not extract profit 3 years before an event then see that extraction drop to about 100m I tbe next 3 years. What's the benefit of extracting 800m in 1999( before a takeover in 2000) Vs Extracting 300m across 4 years before the implementation in 2003? So the share price was "pushed up" in 1999 in anticipation of a sale in December 2000? Dividends do not extract profit? You do realise that in order to meet the standards in 2003 you have to invest up front, don't you? That is why implementation dates exist..." Exactly...but you you 3 years to extract profits from yournlogic..why do it all in 1 year? I notice you never answered dmy queries if others followed suit? | |||
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"The government has begun drawing up contingency plans for the collapse of Thames Water amid growing doubts in Whitehall about the ability of Britain’s biggest water company to service its £14bn debt-pile. Thames Water's announcement follows reports that the UK's privatised water and sewage companies paid £1.4bn in dividends in 2022, up from £540m the previous year. Years of high dividend payments with low investment. Once services deteriorated to the point that the regulator stepped in, investment was paid with low cost debt and dividends still paid. Now that interest rates have gone up, the debt can no longer be serviced and profits are finally getting gobbled up. Greed combined with poor governance. The public sector can only suffer from one of these two. What low investment aorry? And what high dividends If we take Thames water as an example What dividends were taken out each year from privatisation and what was the low investment? This runs counter intuitive to the costs of effluent monitoring,the decrease in leaks etc. £7.2bn in dividends since 1990. Front loaded. £14.3bn in debt since 1990. Heavily rear loaded. Debt ramped up as the consequences of lack of investment became more apparent. Regardless, investment was delayed and then paid through raising huge amounts of debt whilst dividends were being paid out. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jun/30/in-charts-how-privatisation-drained-thames-waters-coffers This does not run "counter-intuitive" to anything. What does whoever you are repeating on Twitter say? Just quote it. It's far easier than you repeating something that you don't understand. So then the dividends were paid quite early on, before government began fining and demanding better quality vs when it was publicly owned. And not so much in the back end years. Debt isn't investment. The biggest extraction of dividends was just before the 2000 EU Water Framework Directive was introduced. The second biggest extraction came before the Bathing Water Directive was introduced in 2006. Curious coincidence. Nobody said that debt was the same as investment. What was it needed for, do you think? You believe that they were using debt to fund operational expenditure and not capital investment whilst extracting "profit"? Interesting business model. If they didn't know that they were failing to deliver on their duties until they were fined, then they were mismanaged. If they didn't know that they would have additional performance requirements and therefore costs then they were mismanaged. Just quote your Twitter argument as what you are writing is just rambling. They were bought in 2006 its ell noted maquarie tried recouping some of their investment Immediately. In 2000 they released the dividend 9 months before the Directive In 2 of the 3 prior years before that the dividends were paid out at higher than 600m The implementation date for the Directive was 3 years later. Thames water was bought by RWE in 2000 Which was likely more of an influence again s they recovered some of the investment funds. You said they hadn't invested enough. I was wanting you to prove whay they've invested. You for some reason mentioned debt. RWE bought Thames water after the bumper dividend payout. RWE sold Thames Water after the next bumper dividend payment. Both happened before the introduction of new regulations. You think that they did not know that the directive was coming and were not consulted? Incompetent management again if that were the case. The data is there, as is the fact that they are unable to service their debt now, as is the fact that they extracted profits and sold shares before new water regulations were implemented. I don't have to "prove" anything to you. If they weren't using debt to invest then it was to pay dividends or operational expenditure when they were aware that new regulations requiring more investment was needed. Just post the Tweet or article that you are trying to copy from, because it is just garbage so far. Apologies on the above I got my articles mixed up. The dividend was paid in 96 and 98 of 600m or more then 800m in 1999 prior to the takeover of rwe pushing up share price. The dividend would have been paid to increase the takeover price being paid to the shareholders( and management) I'm not entirely sure how you reconcile the 96 and 98 dividends on the e.u waters act. Would you care to explain? The other takeover I can see why the dividend was paid out after the takeover I'm not entirely sure where you've got the idea for this paying dividends before the implementation of water stuff comes from...maybe you can share your conspiracy sites? Given that the dividends were paid out before hand? You're quite right. The loans are owed to Thames Waters previous owners who extracted both loan payments and dividends. They weren't used to pay for investment. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66051555.amp There was no bid in okay for Thames Water when dividends were paid out. Do you think purchasers are so naive that they would believe that a one off payment meant that the company was inherently more valuable? I don't think that you're sure of anything much at all. The 1999 and 2007 dividend spikes both correlate with profits being extracted despite regulation changes that would require more investment. What are you actually arguing? That Thames Water has been well managed and they couldn't possibly have known that they needed to invest money to maintain their services to an adequate standard? The profit extractions coincide very very nicely with takeovers too. Takeovers happening a LOT more immediately than the implementation of protocols. If as _irldn says investor do their due diligence. They knkw tbe wager improvements were coming in 2003 It seems to me the dividends were there to help push up share prices. Not extract profit 3 years before an event then see that extraction drop to about 100m I tbe next 3 years. What's the benefit of extracting 800m in 1999( before a takeover in 2000) Vs Extracting 300m across 4 years before the implementation in 2003? So the share price was "pushed up" in 1999 in anticipation of a sale in December 2000? Dividends do not extract profit? You do realise that in order to meet the standards in 2003 you have to invest up front, don't you? That is why implementation dates exist... Exactly...but you you 3 years to extract profits from yournlogic..why do it all in 1 year? I notice you never answered dmy queries if others followed suit? " Morley that is some brass neck to accuse anyone on here of not answering your questions! A bit hypocritical I would say! | |||
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"The government has begun drawing up contingency plans for the collapse of Thames Water amid growing doubts in Whitehall about the ability of Britain’s biggest water company to service its £14bn debt-pile. Thames Water's announcement follows reports that the UK's privatised water and sewage companies paid £1.4bn in dividends in 2022, up from £540m the previous year. Years of high dividend payments with low investment. Once services deteriorated to the point that the regulator stepped in, investment was paid with low cost debt and dividends still paid. Now that interest rates have gone up, the debt can no longer be serviced and profits are finally getting gobbled up. Greed combined with poor governance. The public sector can only suffer from one of these two. What low investment aorry? And what high dividends If we take Thames water as an example What dividends were taken out each year from privatisation and what was the low investment? This runs counter intuitive to the costs of effluent monitoring,the decrease in leaks etc. £7.2bn in dividends since 1990. Front loaded. £14.3bn in debt since 1990. Heavily rear loaded. Debt ramped up as the consequences of lack of investment became more apparent. Regardless, investment was delayed and then paid through raising huge amounts of debt whilst dividends were being paid out. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jun/30/in-charts-how-privatisation-drained-thames-waters-coffers This does not run "counter-intuitive" to anything. What does whoever you are repeating on Twitter say? Just quote it. It's far easier than you repeating something that you don't understand. So then the dividends were paid quite early on, before government began fining and demanding better quality vs when it was publicly owned. And not so much in the back end years. Debt isn't investment. The biggest extraction of dividends was just before the 2000 EU Water Framework Directive was introduced. The second biggest extraction came before the Bathing Water Directive was introduced in 2006. Curious coincidence. Nobody said that debt was the same as investment. What was it needed for, do you think? You believe that they were using debt to fund operational expenditure and not capital investment whilst extracting "profit"? Interesting business model. If they didn't know that they were failing to deliver on their duties until they were fined, then they were mismanaged. If they didn't know that they would have additional performance requirements and therefore costs then they were mismanaged. Just quote your Twitter argument as what you are writing is just rambling. They were bought in 2006 its ell noted maquarie tried recouping some of their investment Immediately. In 2000 they released the dividend 9 months before the Directive In 2 of the 3 prior years before that the dividends were paid out at higher than 600m The implementation date for the Directive was 3 years later. Thames water was bought by RWE in 2000 Which was likely more of an influence again s they recovered some of the investment funds. You said they hadn't invested enough. I was wanting you to prove whay they've invested. You for some reason mentioned debt. RWE bought Thames water after the bumper dividend payout. RWE sold Thames Water after the next bumper dividend payment. Both happened before the introduction of new regulations. You think that they did not know that the directive was coming and were not consulted? Incompetent management again if that were the case. The data is there, as is the fact that they are unable to service their debt now, as is the fact that they extracted profits and sold shares before new water regulations were implemented. I don't have to "prove" anything to you. If they weren't using debt to invest then it was to pay dividends or operational expenditure when they were aware that new regulations requiring more investment was needed. Just post the Tweet or article that you are trying to copy from, because it is just garbage so far. Apologies on the above I got my articles mixed up. The dividend was paid in 96 and 98 of 600m or more then 800m in 1999 prior to the takeover of rwe pushing up share price. The dividend would have been paid to increase the takeover price being paid to the shareholders( and management) I'm not entirely sure how you reconcile the 96 and 98 dividends on the e.u waters act. Would you care to explain? The other takeover I can see why the dividend was paid out after the takeover I'm not entirely sure where you've got the idea for this paying dividends before the implementation of water stuff comes from...maybe you can share your conspiracy sites? Given that the dividends were paid out before hand? You're quite right. The loans are owed to Thames Waters previous owners who extracted both loan payments and dividends. They weren't used to pay for investment. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66051555.amp There was no bid in okay for Thames Water when dividends were paid out. Do you think purchasers are so naive that they would believe that a one off payment meant that the company was inherently more valuable? I don't think that you're sure of anything much at all. The 1999 and 2007 dividend spikes both correlate with profits being extracted despite regulation changes that would require more investment. What are you actually arguing? That Thames Water has been well managed and they couldn't possibly have known that they needed to invest money to maintain their services to an adequate standard? The profit extractions coincide very very nicely with takeovers too. Takeovers happening a LOT more immediately than the implementation of protocols. If as _irldn says investor do their due diligence. They knkw tbe wager improvements were coming in 2003 It seems to me the dividends were there to help push up share prices. Not extract profit 3 years before an event then see that extraction drop to about 100m I tbe next 3 years. What's the benefit of extracting 800m in 1999( before a takeover in 2000) Vs Extracting 300m across 4 years before the implementation in 2003? So the share price was "pushed up" in 1999 in anticipation of a sale in December 2000? Dividends do not extract profit? You do realise that in order to meet the standards in 2003 you have to invest up front, don't you? That is why implementation dates exist... Exactly...but you you 3 years to extract profits from yournlogic..why do it all in 1 year? I notice you never answered dmy queries if others followed suit? Morley that is some brass neck to accuse anyone on here of not answering your questions! A bit hypocritical I would say!" Not at all. You made a claim an author was linked to Tufton street. You couldn't back it up You spouted other irrelevant questions to the topic in some sort of bid to save face. | |||
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"The government has begun drawing up contingency plans for the collapse of Thames Water amid growing doubts in Whitehall about the ability of Britain’s biggest water company to service its £14bn debt-pile. Thames Water's announcement follows reports that the UK's privatised water and sewage companies paid £1.4bn in dividends in 2022, up from £540m the previous year. Years of high dividend payments with low investment. Once services deteriorated to the point that the regulator stepped in, investment was paid with low cost debt and dividends still paid. Now that interest rates have gone up, the debt can no longer be serviced and profits are finally getting gobbled up. Greed combined with poor governance. The public sector can only suffer from one of these two. What low investment aorry? And what high dividends If we take Thames water as an example What dividends were taken out each year from privatisation and what was the low investment? This runs counter intuitive to the costs of effluent monitoring,the decrease in leaks etc. £7.2bn in dividends since 1990. Front loaded. £14.3bn in debt since 1990. Heavily rear loaded. Debt ramped up as the consequences of lack of investment became more apparent. Regardless, investment was delayed and then paid through raising huge amounts of debt whilst dividends were being paid out. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jun/30/in-charts-how-privatisation-drained-thames-waters-coffers This does not run "counter-intuitive" to anything. What does whoever you are repeating on Twitter say? Just quote it. It's far easier than you repeating something that you don't understand. So then the dividends were paid quite early on, before government began fining and demanding better quality vs when it was publicly owned. And not so much in the back end years. Debt isn't investment. The biggest extraction of dividends was just before the 2000 EU Water Framework Directive was introduced. The second biggest extraction came before the Bathing Water Directive was introduced in 2006. Curious coincidence. Nobody said that debt was the same as investment. What was it needed for, do you think? You believe that they were using debt to fund operational expenditure and not capital investment whilst extracting "profit"? Interesting business model. If they didn't know that they were failing to deliver on their duties until they were fined, then they were mismanaged. If they didn't know that they would have additional performance requirements and therefore costs then they were mismanaged. Just quote your Twitter argument as what you are writing is just rambling. They were bought in 2006 its ell noted maquarie tried recouping some of their investment Immediately. In 2000 they released the dividend 9 months before the Directive In 2 of the 3 prior years before that the dividends were paid out at higher than 600m The implementation date for the Directive was 3 years later. Thames water was bought by RWE in 2000 Which was likely more of an influence again s they recovered some of the investment funds. You said they hadn't invested enough. I was wanting you to prove whay they've invested. You for some reason mentioned debt. RWE bought Thames water after the bumper dividend payout. RWE sold Thames Water after the next bumper dividend payment. Both happened before the introduction of new regulations. You think that they did not know that the directive was coming and were not consulted? Incompetent management again if that were the case. The data is there, as is the fact that they are unable to service their debt now, as is the fact that they extracted profits and sold shares before new water regulations were implemented. I don't have to "prove" anything to you. If they weren't using debt to invest then it was to pay dividends or operational expenditure when they were aware that new regulations requiring more investment was needed. Just post the Tweet or article that you are trying to copy from, because it is just garbage so far. Apologies on the above I got my articles mixed up. The dividend was paid in 96 and 98 of 600m or more then 800m in 1999 prior to the takeover of rwe pushing up share price. The dividend would have been paid to increase the takeover price being paid to the shareholders( and management) I'm not entirely sure how you reconcile the 96 and 98 dividends on the e.u waters act. Would you care to explain? The other takeover I can see why the dividend was paid out after the takeover I'm not entirely sure where you've got the idea for this paying dividends before the implementation of water stuff comes from...maybe you can share your conspiracy sites? Given that the dividends were paid out before hand? You're quite right. The loans are owed to Thames Waters previous owners who extracted both loan payments and dividends. They weren't used to pay for investment. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66051555.amp There was no bid in okay for Thames Water when dividends were paid out. Do you think purchasers are so naive that they would believe that a one off payment meant that the company was inherently more valuable? I don't think that you're sure of anything much at all. The 1999 and 2007 dividend spikes both correlate with profits being extracted despite regulation changes that would require more investment. What are you actually arguing? That Thames Water has been well managed and they couldn't possibly have known that they needed to invest money to maintain their services to an adequate standard? The profit extractions coincide very very nicely with takeovers too. Takeovers happening a LOT more immediately than the implementation of protocols. If as _irldn says investor do their due diligence. They knkw tbe wager improvements were coming in 2003 It seems to me the dividends were there to help push up share prices. Not extract profit 3 years before an event then see that extraction drop to about 100m I tbe next 3 years. What's the benefit of extracting 800m in 1999( before a takeover in 2000) Vs Extracting 300m across 4 years before the implementation in 2003? So the share price was "pushed up" in 1999 in anticipation of a sale in December 2000? Dividends do not extract profit? You do realise that in order to meet the standards in 2003 you have to invest up front, don't you? That is why implementation dates exist... Exactly...but you you 3 years to extract profits from yournlogic..why do it all in 1 year? I notice you never answered dmy queries if others followed suit? Morley that is some brass neck to accuse anyone on here of not answering your questions! A bit hypocritical I would say! Not at all. You made a claim an author was linked to Tufton street. You couldn't back it up You spouted other irrelevant questions to the topic in some sort of bid to save face. " People are seeing you Morley. The questions were highly relevant. Anyone could see that. Except you because they expose the agenda at play. | |||
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"The government has begun drawing up contingency plans for the collapse of Thames Water amid growing doubts in Whitehall about the ability of Britain’s biggest water company to service its £14bn debt-pile. Thames Water's announcement follows reports that the UK's privatised water and sewage companies paid £1.4bn in dividends in 2022, up from £540m the previous year. Years of high dividend payments with low investment. Once services deteriorated to the point that the regulator stepped in, investment was paid with low cost debt and dividends still paid. Now that interest rates have gone up, the debt can no longer be serviced and profits are finally getting gobbled up. Greed combined with poor governance. The public sector can only suffer from one of these two. What low investment aorry? And what high dividends If we take Thames water as an example What dividends were taken out each year from privatisation and what was the low investment? This runs counter intuitive to the costs of effluent monitoring,the decrease in leaks etc. £7.2bn in dividends since 1990. Front loaded. £14.3bn in debt since 1990. Heavily rear loaded. Debt ramped up as the consequences of lack of investment became more apparent. Regardless, investment was delayed and then paid through raising huge amounts of debt whilst dividends were being paid out. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jun/30/in-charts-how-privatisation-drained-thames-waters-coffers This does not run "counter-intuitive" to anything. What does whoever you are repeating on Twitter say? Just quote it. It's far easier than you repeating something that you don't understand. So then the dividends were paid quite early on, before government began fining and demanding better quality vs when it was publicly owned. And not so much in the back end years. Debt isn't investment. The biggest extraction of dividends was just before the 2000 EU Water Framework Directive was introduced. The second biggest extraction came before the Bathing Water Directive was introduced in 2006. Curious coincidence. Nobody said that debt was the same as investment. What was it needed for, do you think? You believe that they were using debt to fund operational expenditure and not capital investment whilst extracting "profit"? Interesting business model. If they didn't know that they were failing to deliver on their duties until they were fined, then they were mismanaged. If they didn't know that they would have additional performance requirements and therefore costs then they were mismanaged. Just quote your Twitter argument as what you are writing is just rambling. They were bought in 2006 its ell noted maquarie tried recouping some of their investment Immediately. In 2000 they released the dividend 9 months before the Directive In 2 of the 3 prior years before that the dividends were paid out at higher than 600m The implementation date for the Directive was 3 years later. Thames water was bought by RWE in 2000 Which was likely more of an influence again s they recovered some of the investment funds. You said they hadn't invested enough. I was wanting you to prove whay they've invested. You for some reason mentioned debt. RWE bought Thames water after the bumper dividend payout. RWE sold Thames Water after the next bumper dividend payment. Both happened before the introduction of new regulations. You think that they did not know that the directive was coming and were not consulted? Incompetent management again if that were the case. The data is there, as is the fact that they are unable to service their debt now, as is the fact that they extracted profits and sold shares before new water regulations were implemented. I don't have to "prove" anything to you. If they weren't using debt to invest then it was to pay dividends or operational expenditure when they were aware that new regulations requiring more investment was needed. Just post the Tweet or article that you are trying to copy from, because it is just garbage so far. Apologies on the above I got my articles mixed up. The dividend was paid in 96 and 98 of 600m or more then 800m in 1999 prior to the takeover of rwe pushing up share price. The dividend would have been paid to increase the takeover price being paid to the shareholders( and management) I'm not entirely sure how you reconcile the 96 and 98 dividends on the e.u waters act. Would you care to explain? The other takeover I can see why the dividend was paid out after the takeover I'm not entirely sure where you've got the idea for this paying dividends before the implementation of water stuff comes from...maybe you can share your conspiracy sites? Given that the dividends were paid out before hand? You're quite right. The loans are owed to Thames Waters previous owners who extracted both loan payments and dividends. They weren't used to pay for investment. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66051555.amp There was no bid in okay for Thames Water when dividends were paid out. Do you think purchasers are so naive that they would believe that a one off payment meant that the company was inherently more valuable? I don't think that you're sure of anything much at all. The 1999 and 2007 dividend spikes both correlate with profits being extracted despite regulation changes that would require more investment. What are you actually arguing? That Thames Water has been well managed and they couldn't possibly have known that they needed to invest money to maintain their services to an adequate standard? The profit extractions coincide very very nicely with takeovers too. Takeovers happening a LOT more immediately than the implementation of protocols. If as _irldn says investor do their due diligence. They knkw tbe wager improvements were coming in 2003 It seems to me the dividends were there to help push up share prices. Not extract profit 3 years before an event then see that extraction drop to about 100m I tbe next 3 years. What's the benefit of extracting 800m in 1999( before a takeover in 2000) Vs Extracting 300m across 4 years before the implementation in 2003? So the share price was "pushed up" in 1999 in anticipation of a sale in December 2000? Dividends do not extract profit? You do realise that in order to meet the standards in 2003 you have to invest up front, don't you? That is why implementation dates exist... Exactly...but you you 3 years to extract profits from yournlogic..why do it all in 1 year? I notice you never answered dmy queries if others followed suit? Morley that is some brass neck to accuse anyone on here of not answering your questions! A bit hypocritical I would say! Not at all. You made a claim an author was linked to Tufton street. You couldn't back it up You spouted other irrelevant questions to the topic in some sort of bid to save face. People are seeing you Morley. The questions were highly relevant. Anyone could see that. Except you because they expose the agenda at play." No they are not. You claimed he was a Tufton stooge. You couldn't prove it. All you are doing is screaming about tweets and looking foolish. | |||
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"The government has begun drawing up contingency plans for the collapse of Thames Water amid growing doubts in Whitehall about the ability of Britain’s biggest water company to service its £14bn debt-pile. Thames Water's announcement follows reports that the UK's privatised water and sewage companies paid £1.4bn in dividends in 2022, up from £540m the previous year. Years of high dividend payments with low investment. Once services deteriorated to the point that the regulator stepped in, investment was paid with low cost debt and dividends still paid. Now that interest rates have gone up, the debt can no longer be serviced and profits are finally getting gobbled up. Greed combined with poor governance. The public sector can only suffer from one of these two. What low investment aorry? And what high dividends If we take Thames water as an example What dividends were taken out each year from privatisation and what was the low investment? This runs counter intuitive to the costs of effluent monitoring,the decrease in leaks etc. £7.2bn in dividends since 1990. Front loaded. £14.3bn in debt since 1990. Heavily rear loaded. Debt ramped up as the consequences of lack of investment became more apparent. Regardless, investment was delayed and then paid through raising huge amounts of debt whilst dividends were being paid out. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jun/30/in-charts-how-privatisation-drained-thames-waters-coffers This does not run "counter-intuitive" to anything. What does whoever you are repeating on Twitter say? Just quote it. It's far easier than you repeating something that you don't understand. So then the dividends were paid quite early on, before government began fining and demanding better quality vs when it was publicly owned. And not so much in the back end years. Debt isn't investment. The biggest extraction of dividends was just before the 2000 EU Water Framework Directive was introduced. The second biggest extraction came before the Bathing Water Directive was introduced in 2006. Curious coincidence. Nobody said that debt was the same as investment. What was it needed for, do you think? You believe that they were using debt to fund operational expenditure and not capital investment whilst extracting "profit"? Interesting business model. If they didn't know that they were failing to deliver on their duties until they were fined, then they were mismanaged. If they didn't know that they would have additional performance requirements and therefore costs then they were mismanaged. Just quote your Twitter argument as what you are writing is just rambling. They were bought in 2006 its ell noted maquarie tried recouping some of their investment Immediately. In 2000 they released the dividend 9 months before the Directive In 2 of the 3 prior years before that the dividends were paid out at higher than 600m The implementation date for the Directive was 3 years later. Thames water was bought by RWE in 2000 Which was likely more of an influence again s they recovered some of the investment funds. You said they hadn't invested enough. I was wanting you to prove whay they've invested. You for some reason mentioned debt. RWE bought Thames water after the bumper dividend payout. RWE sold Thames Water after the next bumper dividend payment. Both happened before the introduction of new regulations. You think that they did not know that the directive was coming and were not consulted? Incompetent management again if that were the case. The data is there, as is the fact that they are unable to service their debt now, as is the fact that they extracted profits and sold shares before new water regulations were implemented. I don't have to "prove" anything to you. If they weren't using debt to invest then it was to pay dividends or operational expenditure when they were aware that new regulations requiring more investment was needed. Just post the Tweet or article that you are trying to copy from, because it is just garbage so far. Apologies on the above I got my articles mixed up. The dividend was paid in 96 and 98 of 600m or more then 800m in 1999 prior to the takeover of rwe pushing up share price. The dividend would have been paid to increase the takeover price being paid to the shareholders( and management) I'm not entirely sure how you reconcile the 96 and 98 dividends on the e.u waters act. Would you care to explain? The other takeover I can see why the dividend was paid out after the takeover I'm not entirely sure where you've got the idea for this paying dividends before the implementation of water stuff comes from...maybe you can share your conspiracy sites? Given that the dividends were paid out before hand? You're quite right. The loans are owed to Thames Waters previous owners who extracted both loan payments and dividends. They weren't used to pay for investment. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66051555.amp There was no bid in okay for Thames Water when dividends were paid out. Do you think purchasers are so naive that they would believe that a one off payment meant that the company was inherently more valuable? I don't think that you're sure of anything much at all. The 1999 and 2007 dividend spikes both correlate with profits being extracted despite regulation changes that would require more investment. What are you actually arguing? That Thames Water has been well managed and they couldn't possibly have known that they needed to invest money to maintain their services to an adequate standard? The profit extractions coincide very very nicely with takeovers too. Takeovers happening a LOT more immediately than the implementation of protocols. If as _irldn says investor do their due diligence. They knkw tbe wager improvements were coming in 2003 It seems to me the dividends were there to help push up share prices. Not extract profit 3 years before an event then see that extraction drop to about 100m I tbe next 3 years. What's the benefit of extracting 800m in 1999( before a takeover in 2000) Vs Extracting 300m across 4 years before the implementation in 2003? So the share price was "pushed up" in 1999 in anticipation of a sale in December 2000? Dividends do not extract profit? You do realise that in order to meet the standards in 2003 you have to invest up front, don't you? That is why implementation dates exist... Exactly...but you you 3 years to extract profits from yournlogic..why do it all in 1 year? I notice you never answered dmy queries if others followed suit? Morley that is some brass neck to accuse anyone on here of not answering your questions! A bit hypocritical I would say! Not at all. You made a claim an author was linked to Tufton street. You couldn't back it up You spouted other irrelevant questions to the topic in some sort of bid to save face. People are seeing you Morley. The questions were highly relevant. Anyone could see that. Except you because they expose the agenda at play. No they are not. You claimed he was a Tufton stooge. You couldn't prove it. All you are doing is screaming about tweets and looking foolish. " It is reasonable to question unverified sources, is it not? If much of their information repeats those of an organisation with a clear agenda then it is reasonable to question their impartiality. That stands equally for both sides of an argument. Although, it is somewhat easier to argue that an individual or group aligned with the scientific data is less questionable than one aligned with organisations with opaque funding. Ordinarily. In your case I'm sure that you will construct a contorted argument to "prove" your point involving "disproving" some other Tweet with reams of in-depth calculations from misrepresented sources with deliberately contrived assumptions... | |||
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"The government has begun drawing up contingency plans for the collapse of Thames Water amid growing doubts in Whitehall about the ability of Britain’s biggest water company to service its £14bn debt-pile. Thames Water's announcement follows reports that the UK's privatised water and sewage companies paid £1.4bn in dividends in 2022, up from £540m the previous year. Years of high dividend payments with low investment. Once services deteriorated to the point that the regulator stepped in, investment was paid with low cost debt and dividends still paid. Now that interest rates have gone up, the debt can no longer be serviced and profits are finally getting gobbled up. Greed combined with poor governance. The public sector can only suffer from one of these two. What low investment aorry? And what high dividends If we take Thames water as an example What dividends were taken out each year from privatisation and what was the low investment? This runs counter intuitive to the costs of effluent monitoring,the decrease in leaks etc. £7.2bn in dividends since 1990. Front loaded. £14.3bn in debt since 1990. Heavily rear loaded. Debt ramped up as the consequences of lack of investment became more apparent. Regardless, investment was delayed and then paid through raising huge amounts of debt whilst dividends were being paid out. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jun/30/in-charts-how-privatisation-drained-thames-waters-coffers This does not run "counter-intuitive" to anything. What does whoever you are repeating on Twitter say? Just quote it. It's far easier than you repeating something that you don't understand. So then the dividends were paid quite early on, before government began fining and demanding better quality vs when it was publicly owned. And not so much in the back end years. Debt isn't investment. The biggest extraction of dividends was just before the 2000 EU Water Framework Directive was introduced. The second biggest extraction came before the Bathing Water Directive was introduced in 2006. Curious coincidence. Nobody said that debt was the same as investment. What was it needed for, do you think? You believe that they were using debt to fund operational expenditure and not capital investment whilst extracting "profit"? Interesting business model. If they didn't know that they were failing to deliver on their duties until they were fined, then they were mismanaged. If they didn't know that they would have additional performance requirements and therefore costs then they were mismanaged. Just quote your Twitter argument as what you are writing is just rambling. They were bought in 2006 its ell noted maquarie tried recouping some of their investment Immediately. In 2000 they released the dividend 9 months before the Directive In 2 of the 3 prior years before that the dividends were paid out at higher than 600m The implementation date for the Directive was 3 years later. Thames water was bought by RWE in 2000 Which was likely more of an influence again s they recovered some of the investment funds. You said they hadn't invested enough. I was wanting you to prove whay they've invested. You for some reason mentioned debt. RWE bought Thames water after the bumper dividend payout. RWE sold Thames Water after the next bumper dividend payment. Both happened before the introduction of new regulations. You think that they did not know that the directive was coming and were not consulted? Incompetent management again if that were the case. The data is there, as is the fact that they are unable to service their debt now, as is the fact that they extracted profits and sold shares before new water regulations were implemented. I don't have to "prove" anything to you. If they weren't using debt to invest then it was to pay dividends or operational expenditure when they were aware that new regulations requiring more investment was needed. Just post the Tweet or article that you are trying to copy from, because it is just garbage so far. Apologies on the above I got my articles mixed up. The dividend was paid in 96 and 98 of 600m or more then 800m in 1999 prior to the takeover of rwe pushing up share price. The dividend would have been paid to increase the takeover price being paid to the shareholders( and management) I'm not entirely sure how you reconcile the 96 and 98 dividends on the e.u waters act. Would you care to explain? The other takeover I can see why the dividend was paid out after the takeover I'm not entirely sure where you've got the idea for this paying dividends before the implementation of water stuff comes from...maybe you can share your conspiracy sites? Given that the dividends were paid out before hand? You're quite right. The loans are owed to Thames Waters previous owners who extracted both loan payments and dividends. They weren't used to pay for investment. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66051555.amp There was no bid in okay for Thames Water when dividends were paid out. Do you think purchasers are so naive that they would believe that a one off payment meant that the company was inherently more valuable? I don't think that you're sure of anything much at all. The 1999 and 2007 dividend spikes both correlate with profits being extracted despite regulation changes that would require more investment. What are you actually arguing? That Thames Water has been well managed and they couldn't possibly have known that they needed to invest money to maintain their services to an adequate standard? The profit extractions coincide very very nicely with takeovers too. Takeovers happening a LOT more immediately than the implementation of protocols. If as _irldn says investor do their due diligence. They knkw tbe wager improvements were coming in 2003 It seems to me the dividends were there to help push up share prices. Not extract profit 3 years before an event then see that extraction drop to about 100m I tbe next 3 years. What's the benefit of extracting 800m in 1999( before a takeover in 2000) Vs Extracting 300m across 4 years before the implementation in 2003? So the share price was "pushed up" in 1999 in anticipation of a sale in December 2000? Dividends do not extract profit? You do realise that in order to meet the standards in 2003 you have to invest up front, don't you? That is why implementation dates exist... Exactly...but you you 3 years to extract profits from yournlogic..why do it all in 1 year? I notice you never answered dmy queries if others followed suit? " Is your overall argument that Thames water has been well managed? RWE announced its bid for Thames Water in September 2000. Completed in December 2000. The 1999 dividend payment did not "coincide" with that bid, not did it raise the share price for a sale that came a year later. I stated this before. Unless there was insider-trading, of course. I'm interested to hear your explanation though. If dividends do not extract profit, then what do they do? If you know that there will be a large investment requirement and you extract all available cash, then the regulator will have no choice but to allow you to borrow money and/or raise consumer prices. FY from 2017. Somewhat prophetic: "Thames Water: the murky structure of a utility company As raw sewage poured into London’s rivers, the water supplier awarded huge dividends to investors" https://www.ft.com/content/5413ebf8-24f1-11e7-8691-d5f7e0cd0a16 I noticed that you never answered my questions  | |||
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"I have plenty of water in my well . Do y'all need some? FFS. You all arguing over water. Do you Brits take a day off for not being stupid? Or is it hereditary? " One word... FLINT | |||
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"I have plenty of water in my well . Do y'all need some? FFS. You all arguing over water. Do you Brits take a day off for not being stupid? Or is it hereditary? " The American west is facing a severe water crisis in the next 50 years if solutions aren’t found. | |||
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"I have plenty of water in my well . Do y'all need some? FFS. You all arguing over water. Do you Brits take a day off for not being stupid? Or is it hereditary? " I collect rain water but as its over 100,000 gallons I have to have a licence do you need one for your well in the UK this is an extraction licence and you would have to meter how much you take and treat it to the same standards as the UK drinking water. | |||
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"The government has begun drawing up contingency plans for the collapse of Thames Water amid growing doubts in Whitehall about the ability of Britain’s biggest water company to service its £14bn debt-pile. Thames Water's announcement follows reports that the UK's privatised water and sewage companies paid £1.4bn in dividends in 2022, up from £540m the previous year. Years of high dividend payments with low investment. Once services deteriorated to the point that the regulator stepped in, investment was paid with low cost debt and dividends still paid. Now that interest rates have gone up, the debt can no longer be serviced and profits are finally getting gobbled up. Greed combined with poor governance. The public sector can only suffer from one of these two. What low investment aorry? And what high dividends If we take Thames water as an example What dividends were taken out each year from privatisation and what was the low investment? This runs counter intuitive to the costs of effluent monitoring,the decrease in leaks etc. £7.2bn in dividends since 1990. Front loaded. £14.3bn in debt since 1990. Heavily rear loaded. Debt ramped up as the consequences of lack of investment became more apparent. Regardless, investment was delayed and then paid through raising huge amounts of debt whilst dividends were being paid out. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jun/30/in-charts-how-privatisation-drained-thames-waters-coffers This does not run "counter-intuitive" to anything. What does whoever you are repeating on Twitter say? Just quote it. It's far easier than you repeating something that you don't understand. So then the dividends were paid quite early on, before government began fining and demanding better quality vs when it was publicly owned. And not so much in the back end years. Debt isn't investment. The biggest extraction of dividends was just before the 2000 EU Water Framework Directive was introduced. The second biggest extraction came before the Bathing Water Directive was introduced in 2006. Curious coincidence. Nobody said that debt was the same as investment. What was it needed for, do you think? You believe that they were using debt to fund operational expenditure and not capital investment whilst extracting "profit"? Interesting business model. If they didn't know that they were failing to deliver on their duties until they were fined, then they were mismanaged. If they didn't know that they would have additional performance requirements and therefore costs then they were mismanaged. Just quote your Twitter argument as what you are writing is just rambling. They were bought in 2006 its ell noted maquarie tried recouping some of their investment Immediately. In 2000 they released the dividend 9 months before the Directive In 2 of the 3 prior years before that the dividends were paid out at higher than 600m The implementation date for the Directive was 3 years later. Thames water was bought by RWE in 2000 Which was likely more of an influence again s they recovered some of the investment funds. You said they hadn't invested enough. I was wanting you to prove whay they've invested. You for some reason mentioned debt. RWE bought Thames water after the bumper dividend payout. RWE sold Thames Water after the next bumper dividend payment. Both happened before the introduction of new regulations. You think that they did not know that the directive was coming and were not consulted? Incompetent management again if that were the case. The data is there, as is the fact that they are unable to service their debt now, as is the fact that they extracted profits and sold shares before new water regulations were implemented. I don't have to "prove" anything to you. If they weren't using debt to invest then it was to pay dividends or operational expenditure when they were aware that new regulations requiring more investment was needed. Just post the Tweet or article that you are trying to copy from, because it is just garbage so far. Apologies on the above I got my articles mixed up. The dividend was paid in 96 and 98 of 600m or more then 800m in 1999 prior to the takeover of rwe pushing up share price. The dividend would have been paid to increase the takeover price being paid to the shareholders( and management) I'm not entirely sure how you reconcile the 96 and 98 dividends on the e.u waters act. Would you care to explain? The other takeover I can see why the dividend was paid out after the takeover I'm not entirely sure where you've got the idea for this paying dividends before the implementation of water stuff comes from...maybe you can share your conspiracy sites? Given that the dividends were paid out before hand? You're quite right. The loans are owed to Thames Waters previous owners who extracted both loan payments and dividends. They weren't used to pay for investment. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66051555.amp There was no bid in okay for Thames Water when dividends were paid out. Do you think purchasers are so naive that they would believe that a one off payment meant that the company was inherently more valuable? I don't think that you're sure of anything much at all. The 1999 and 2007 dividend spikes both correlate with profits being extracted despite regulation changes that would require more investment. What are you actually arguing? That Thames Water has been well managed and they couldn't possibly have known that they needed to invest money to maintain their services to an adequate standard? The profit extractions coincide very very nicely with takeovers too. Takeovers happening a LOT more immediately than the implementation of protocols. If as _irldn says investor do their due diligence. They knkw tbe wager improvements were coming in 2003 It seems to me the dividends were there to help push up share prices. Not extract profit 3 years before an event then see that extraction drop to about 100m I tbe next 3 years. What's the benefit of extracting 800m in 1999( before a takeover in 2000) Vs Extracting 300m across 4 years before the implementation in 2003? So the share price was "pushed up" in 1999 in anticipation of a sale in December 2000? Dividends do not extract profit? You do realise that in order to meet the standards in 2003 you have to invest up front, don't you? That is why implementation dates exist... Exactly...but you you 3 years to extract profits from yournlogic..why do it all in 1 year? I notice you never answered dmy queries if others followed suit? Is your overall argument that Thames water has been well managed? RWE announced its bid for Thames Water in September 2000. Completed in December 2000. The 1999 dividend payment did not "coincide" with that bid, not did it raise the share price for a sale that came a year later. I stated this before. Unless there was insider-trading, of course. I'm interested to hear your explanation though. If dividends do not extract profit, then what do they do? If you know that there will be a large investment requirement and you extract all available cash, then the regulator will have no choice but to allow you to borrow money and/or raise consumer prices. FY from 2017. Somewhat prophetic: "Thames Water: the murky structure of a utility company As raw sewage poured into London’s rivers, the water supplier awarded huge dividends to investors" https://www.ft.com/content/5413ebf8-24f1-11e7-8691-d5f7e0cd0a16 I noticed that you never answered my questions "Still not answering the question. Which of the other private water companies followed suit? You know since they're all profiteering and this was coming I to effect. Surely we'd see a pattern. May e you can show us then all doing the exact same thing? | |||
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"I have plenty of water in my well . Do y'all need some? FFS. You all arguing over water. Do you Brits take a day off for not being stupid? Or is it hereditary?" "One word... FLINT" You might need to add a few more words. The single word "flint" isn't doing it for me. | |||
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"I have plenty of water in my well . Do y'all need some? FFS. You all arguing over water. Do you Brits take a day off for not being stupid? Or is it hereditary? One word... FLINT You might need to add a few more words. The single word "flint" isn't doing it for me." I'm assuming Flint Town which had a water poisoning issue. Not quite sure how it relates though. Possibly relates to contamination here in the UK. | |||
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"I have plenty of water in my well . Do y'all need some? FFS. You all arguing over water. Do you Brits take a day off for not being stupid? Or is it hereditary? One word... FLINT You might need to add a few more words. The single word "flint" isn't doing it for me. I'm assuming Flint Town which had a water poisoning issue. Not quite sure how it relates though. Possibly relates to contamination here in the UK." ** Flint City | |||
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"I have plenty of water in my well . Do y'all need some? FFS. You all arguing over water. Do you Brits take a day off for not being stupid? Or is it hereditary? One word... FLINT You might need to add a few more words. The single word "flint" isn't doing it for me. I'm assuming Flint Town which had a water poisoning issue. Not quite sure how it relates though. Possibly relates to contamination here in the UK. ** Flint City " Flint Michigan. 8 year ago. | |||
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"I have plenty of water in my well . Do y'all need some? FFS. You all arguing over water. Do you Brits take a day off for not being stupid? Or is it hereditary? One word... FLINT You might need to add a few more words. The single word "flint" isn't doing it for me. I'm assuming Flint Town which had a water poisoning issue. Not quite sure how it relates though. Possibly relates to contamination here in the UK. ** Flint City Flint Michigan. 8 year ago." Still ongoing though. | |||
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"I have plenty of water in my well . Do y'all need some? FFS. You all arguing over water. Do you Brits take a day off for not being stupid? Or is it hereditary? One word... FLINT You might need to add a few more words. The single word "flint" isn't doing it for me. I'm assuming Flint Town which had a water poisoning issue. Not quite sure how it relates though. Possibly relates to contamination here in the UK. ** Flint City Flint Michigan. 8 year ago. Still ongoing though. " my well isn't in flint now is it ? | |||
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"I have plenty of water in my well . Do y'all need some? FFS. You all arguing over water. Do you Brits take a day off for not being stupid? Or is it hereditary? One word... FLINT You might need to add a few more words. The single word "flint" isn't doing it for me. I'm assuming Flint Town which had a water poisoning issue. Not quite sure how it relates though. Possibly relates to contamination here in the UK. ** Flint City Flint Michigan. 8 year ago. Still ongoing though. my well isn't in flint now is it ? "Ah ok, that’s alright then. As long as you’re not affected | |||
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"I have plenty of water in my well . Do y'all need some? FFS. You all arguing over water. Do you Brits take a day off for not being stupid? Or is it hereditary? One word... FLINT You might need to add a few more words. The single word "flint" isn't doing it for me. I'm assuming Flint Town which had a water poisoning issue. Not quite sure how it relates though. Possibly relates to contamination here in the UK. ** Flint City Flint Michigan. 8 year ago. Still ongoing though. my well isn't in flint now is it ? "Reading it itnsounds a horrible fuck up | |||
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"I have plenty of water in my well . Do y'all need some? FFS. You all arguing over water. Do you Brits take a day off for not being stupid? Or is it hereditary? One word... FLINT You might need to add a few more words. The single word "flint" isn't doing it for me. I'm assuming Flint Town which had a water poisoning issue. Not quite sure how it relates though. Possibly relates to contamination here in the UK." Blu criticises Brits for discussing water as if it is a trivial matter. I reminder Blu about what happened in Flint (throwing stones in glass houses and all that) | |||
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"I have plenty of water in my well . Do y'all need some? FFS. You all arguing over water. Do you Brits take a day off for not being stupid? Or is it hereditary? One word... FLINT You might need to add a few more words. The single word "flint" isn't doing it for me. I'm assuming Flint Town which had a water poisoning issue. Not quite sure how it relates though. Possibly relates to contamination here in the UK. Blu criticises Brits for discussing water as if it is a trivial matter. I reminder Blu about what happened in Flint (throwing stones in glass houses and all that)" So I was kinda right how it relates | |||
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"I have plenty of water in my well . Do y'all need some? FFS. You all arguing over water. Do you Brits take a day off for not being stupid? Or is it hereditary? One word... FLINT You might need to add a few more words. The single word "flint" isn't doing it for me. I'm assuming Flint Town which had a water poisoning issue. Not quite sure how it relates though. Possibly relates to contamination here in the UK. ** Flint City Flint Michigan. 8 year ago." So what? Privatisation of water in UK was late 80s. Shall we dismiss because of time? | |||
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"I have plenty of water in my well . Do y'all need some? FFS. You all arguing over water. Do you Brits take a day off for not being stupid? Or is it hereditary? One word... FLINT You might need to add a few more words. The single word "flint" isn't doing it for me. I'm assuming Flint Town which had a water poisoning issue. Not quite sure how it relates though. Possibly relates to contamination here in the UK. ** Flint City Flint Michigan. 8 year ago. Still ongoing though. my well isn't in flint now is it ? "We are totally aware of your “only me and mine matter” approach to life. Why are you so bothered by what us Brits want to discuss anyway? | |||
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"I have plenty of water in my well . Do y'all need some? FFS. You all arguing over water. Do you Brits take a day off for not being stupid? Or is it hereditary? One word... FLINT You might need to add a few more words. The single word "flint" isn't doing it for me. I'm assuming Flint Town which had a water poisoning issue. Not quite sure how it relates though. Possibly relates to contamination here in the UK. ** Flint City Flint Michigan. 8 year ago. Still ongoing though. my well isn't in flint now is it ?
We are totally aware of your “only me and mine matter” approach to life. Why are you so bothered by what us Brits want to discuss anyway?"You are right I shouldn't care. Just like you shouldn't care about what is happening here. Crack on. | |||
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"I have plenty of water in my well . Do y'all need some? FFS. You all arguing over water. Do you Brits take a day off for not being stupid? Or is it hereditary? One word... FLINT You might need to add a few more words. The single word "flint" isn't doing it for me. I'm assuming Flint Town which had a water poisoning issue. Not quite sure how it relates though. Possibly relates to contamination here in the UK. ** Flint City Flint Michigan. 8 year ago. Still ongoing though. my well isn't in flint now is it ?
We are totally aware of your “only me and mine matter” approach to life. Why are you so bothered by what us Brits want to discuss anyway? You are right I shouldn't care. Just like you shouldn't care about what is happening here. Crack on."Bye bye | |||
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"The government has begun drawing up contingency plans for the collapse of Thames Water amid growing doubts in Whitehall about the ability of Britain’s biggest water company to service its £14bn debt-pile. Thames Water's announcement follows reports that the UK's privatised water and sewage companies paid £1.4bn in dividends in 2022, up from £540m the previous year. Years of high dividend payments with low investment. Once services deteriorated to the point that the regulator stepped in, investment was paid with low cost debt and dividends still paid. Now that interest rates have gone up, the debt can no longer be serviced and profits are finally getting gobbled up. Greed combined with poor governance. The public sector can only suffer from one of these two. What low investment aorry? And what high dividends If we take Thames water as an example What dividends were taken out each year from privatisation and what was the low investment? This runs counter intuitive to the costs of effluent monitoring,the decrease in leaks etc. £7.2bn in dividends since 1990. Front loaded. £14.3bn in debt since 1990. Heavily rear loaded. Debt ramped up as the consequences of lack of investment became more apparent. Regardless, investment was delayed and then paid through raising huge amounts of debt whilst dividends were being paid out. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jun/30/in-charts-how-privatisation-drained-thames-waters-coffers This does not run "counter-intuitive" to anything. What does whoever you are repeating on Twitter say? Just quote it. It's far easier than you repeating something that you don't understand. So then the dividends were paid quite early on, before government began fining and demanding better quality vs when it was publicly owned. And not so much in the back end years. Debt isn't investment. The biggest extraction of dividends was just before the 2000 EU Water Framework Directive was introduced. The second biggest extraction came before the Bathing Water Directive was introduced in 2006. Curious coincidence. Nobody said that debt was the same as investment. What was it needed for, do you think? You believe that they were using debt to fund operational expenditure and not capital investment whilst extracting "profit"? Interesting business model. If they didn't know that they were failing to deliver on their duties until they were fined, then they were mismanaged. If they didn't know that they would have additional performance requirements and therefore costs then they were mismanaged. Just quote your Twitter argument as what you are writing is just rambling. They were bought in 2006 its ell noted maquarie tried recouping some of their investment Immediately. In 2000 they released the dividend 9 months before the Directive In 2 of the 3 prior years before that the dividends were paid out at higher than 600m The implementation date for the Directive was 3 years later. Thames water was bought by RWE in 2000 Which was likely more of an influence again s they recovered some of the investment funds. You said they hadn't invested enough. I was wanting you to prove whay they've invested. You for some reason mentioned debt. RWE bought Thames water after the bumper dividend payout. RWE sold Thames Water after the next bumper dividend payment. Both happened before the introduction of new regulations. You think that they did not know that the directive was coming and were not consulted? Incompetent management again if that were the case. The data is there, as is the fact that they are unable to service their debt now, as is the fact that they extracted profits and sold shares before new water regulations were implemented. I don't have to "prove" anything to you. If they weren't using debt to invest then it was to pay dividends or operational expenditure when they were aware that new regulations requiring more investment was needed. Just post the Tweet or article that you are trying to copy from, because it is just garbage so far. Apologies on the above I got my articles mixed up. The dividend was paid in 96 and 98 of 600m or more then 800m in 1999 prior to the takeover of rwe pushing up share price. The dividend would have been paid to increase the takeover price being paid to the shareholders( and management) I'm not entirely sure how you reconcile the 96 and 98 dividends on the e.u waters act. Would you care to explain? The other takeover I can see why the dividend was paid out after the takeover I'm not entirely sure where you've got the idea for this paying dividends before the implementation of water stuff comes from...maybe you can share your conspiracy sites? Given that the dividends were paid out before hand? You're quite right. The loans are owed to Thames Waters previous owners who extracted both loan payments and dividends. They weren't used to pay for investment. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66051555.amp There was no bid in okay for Thames Water when dividends were paid out. Do you think purchasers are so naive that they would believe that a one off payment meant that the company was inherently more valuable? I don't think that you're sure of anything much at all. The 1999 and 2007 dividend spikes both correlate with profits being extracted despite regulation changes that would require more investment. What are you actually arguing? That Thames Water has been well managed and they couldn't possibly have known that they needed to invest money to maintain their services to an adequate standard? The profit extractions coincide very very nicely with takeovers too. Takeovers happening a LOT more immediately than the implementation of protocols. If as _irldn says investor do their due diligence. They knkw tbe wager improvements were coming in 2003 It seems to me the dividends were there to help push up share prices. Not extract profit 3 years before an event then see that extraction drop to about 100m I tbe next 3 years. What's the benefit of extracting 800m in 1999( before a takeover in 2000) Vs Extracting 300m across 4 years before the implementation in 2003? So the share price was "pushed up" in 1999 in anticipation of a sale in December 2000? Dividends do not extract profit? You do realise that in order to meet the standards in 2003 you have to invest up front, don't you? That is why implementation dates exist... Exactly...but you you 3 years to extract profits from yournlogic..why do it all in 1 year? I notice you never answered dmy queries if others followed suit? Is your overall argument that Thames water has been well managed? RWE announced its bid for Thames Water in September 2000. Completed in December 2000. The 1999 dividend payment did not "coincide" with that bid, not did it raise the share price for a sale that came a year later. I stated this before. Unless there was insider-trading, of course. I'm interested to hear your explanation though. If dividends do not extract profit, then what do they do? If you know that there will be a large investment requirement and you extract all available cash, then the regulator will have no choice but to allow you to borrow money and/or raise consumer prices. FY from 2017. Somewhat prophetic: "Thames Water: the murky structure of a utility company As raw sewage poured into London’s rivers, the water supplier awarded huge dividends to investors" https://www.ft.com/content/5413ebf8-24f1-11e7-8691-d5f7e0cd0a16 I noticed that you never answered my questions
Still not answering the question.
Which of the other private water companies followed suit?
You know since they're all profiteering and this was coming I to effect.
Surely we'd see a pattern.
May e you can show us then all doing the exact same thing?"Difficult to find the time series dividend information. Be a good chap and look it up as you are so eager
Is your overall argument that Thames water has been well managed? | |||
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"I have plenty of water in my well . Do y'all need some? FFS. You all arguing over water. Do you Brits take a day off for not being stupid? Or is it hereditary? " No, surely the Yanks have a monopoly on these things | |||
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"The government has begun drawing up contingency plans for the collapse of Thames Water amid growing doubts in Whitehall about the ability of Britain’s biggest water company to service its £14bn debt-pile. Thames Water's announcement follows reports that the UK's privatised water and sewage companies paid £1.4bn in dividends in 2022, up from £540m the previous year. Years of high dividend payments with low investment. Once services deteriorated to the point that the regulator stepped in, investment was paid with low cost debt and dividends still paid. Now that interest rates have gone up, the debt can no longer be serviced and profits are finally getting gobbled up. Greed combined with poor governance. The public sector can only suffer from one of these two. What low investment aorry? And what high dividends If we take Thames water as an example What dividends were taken out each year from privatisation and what was the low investment? This runs counter intuitive to the costs of effluent monitoring,the decrease in leaks etc. £7.2bn in dividends since 1990. Front loaded. £14.3bn in debt since 1990. Heavily rear loaded. Debt ramped up as the consequences of lack of investment became more apparent. Regardless, investment was delayed and then paid through raising huge amounts of debt whilst dividends were being paid out. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jun/30/in-charts-how-privatisation-drained-thames-waters-coffers This does not run "counter-intuitive" to anything. What does whoever you are repeating on Twitter say? Just quote it. It's far easier than you repeating something that you don't understand. So then the dividends were paid quite early on, before government began fining and demanding better quality vs when it was publicly owned. And not so much in the back end years. Debt isn't investment. The biggest extraction of dividends was just before the 2000 EU Water Framework Directive was introduced. The second biggest extraction came before the Bathing Water Directive was introduced in 2006. Curious coincidence. Nobody said that debt was the same as investment. What was it needed for, do you think? You believe that they were using debt to fund operational expenditure and not capital investment whilst extracting "profit"? Interesting business model. If they didn't know that they were failing to deliver on their duties until they were fined, then they were mismanaged. If they didn't know that they would have additional performance requirements and therefore costs then they were mismanaged. Just quote your Twitter argument as what you are writing is just rambling. They were bought in 2006 its ell noted maquarie tried recouping some of their investment Immediately. In 2000 they released the dividend 9 months before the Directive In 2 of the 3 prior years before that the dividends were paid out at higher than 600m The implementation date for the Directive was 3 years later. Thames water was bought by RWE in 2000 Which was likely more of an influence again s they recovered some of the investment funds. You said they hadn't invested enough. I was wanting you to prove whay they've invested. You for some reason mentioned debt. RWE bought Thames water after the bumper dividend payout. RWE sold Thames Water after the next bumper dividend payment. Both happened before the introduction of new regulations. You think that they did not know that the directive was coming and were not consulted? Incompetent management again if that were the case. The data is there, as is the fact that they are unable to service their debt now, as is the fact that they extracted profits and sold shares before new water regulations were implemented. I don't have to "prove" anything to you. If they weren't using debt to invest then it was to pay dividends or operational expenditure when they were aware that new regulations requiring more investment was needed. Just post the Tweet or article that you are trying to copy from, because it is just garbage so far. Apologies on the above I got my articles mixed up. The dividend was paid in 96 and 98 of 600m or more then 800m in 1999 prior to the takeover of rwe pushing up share price. The dividend would have been paid to increase the takeover price being paid to the shareholders( and management) I'm not entirely sure how you reconcile the 96 and 98 dividends on the e.u waters act. Would you care to explain? The other takeover I can see why the dividend was paid out after the takeover I'm not entirely sure where you've got the idea for this paying dividends before the implementation of water stuff comes from...maybe you can share your conspiracy sites? Given that the dividends were paid out before hand? You're quite right. The loans are owed to Thames Waters previous owners who extracted both loan payments and dividends. They weren't used to pay for investment. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66051555.amp There was no bid in okay for Thames Water when dividends were paid out. Do you think purchasers are so naive that they would believe that a one off payment meant that the company was inherently more valuable? I don't think that you're sure of anything much at all. The 1999 and 2007 dividend spikes both correlate with profits being extracted despite regulation changes that would require more investment. What are you actually arguing? That Thames Water has been well managed and they couldn't possibly have known that they needed to invest money to maintain their services to an adequate standard? The profit extractions coincide very very nicely with takeovers too. Takeovers happening a LOT more immediately than the implementation of protocols. If as _irldn says investor do their due diligence. They knkw tbe wager improvements were coming in 2003 It seems to me the dividends were there to help push up share prices. Not extract profit 3 years before an event then see that extraction drop to about 100m I tbe next 3 years. What's the benefit of extracting 800m in 1999( before a takeover in 2000) Vs Extracting 300m across 4 years before the implementation in 2003? So the share price was "pushed up" in 1999 in anticipation of a sale in December 2000? Dividends do not extract profit? You do realise that in order to meet the standards in 2003 you have to invest up front, don't you? That is why implementation dates exist... Exactly...but you you 3 years to extract profits from yournlogic..why do it all in 1 year? I notice you never answered dmy queries if others followed suit? Is your overall argument that Thames water has been well managed? RWE announced its bid for Thames Water in September 2000. Completed in December 2000. The 1999 dividend payment did not "coincide" with that bid, not did it raise the share price for a sale that came a year later. I stated this before. Unless there was insider-trading, of course. I'm interested to hear your explanation though. If dividends do not extract profit, then what do they do? If you know that there will be a large investment requirement and you extract all available cash, then the regulator will have no choice but to allow you to borrow money and/or raise consumer prices. FY from 2017. Somewhat prophetic: "Thames Water: the murky structure of a utility company As raw sewage poured into London’s rivers, the water supplier awarded huge dividends to investors" https://www.ft.com/content/5413ebf8-24f1-11e7-8691-d5f7e0cd0a16 I noticed that you never answered my questions
Still not answering the question.
Which of the other private water companies followed suit?
You know since they're all profiteering and this was coming I to effect.
Surely we'd see a pattern.
May e you can show us then all doing the exact same thing?
Difficult to find the time series dividend information.
Be a good chap and look it up as you are so eager
Is your overall argument that Thames water has been well managed?"Difficult to find? These are publicly traded companies with share holders. ................... | |||
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