Our Planet Climate and Geopolitics
Thames Water’s parent company has defaulted on some of its debts, failing to make an interest payment due last week. The utility, Britain’s biggest, will go on supplying 16 million customers across the capital and Thames valley with water and sanitation services but its parent, Kemble Water Finance, said interest payments due on a £400 million bond had not been paid. That’s the start of a process of renegotiating its debts. One possibility is that Kemble’s creditors will take shares in the business in exchange for their debt – but that would wipe out the value of existing shareholders’ stakes, including that of the USS, the university lecturers’ pension scheme. Whatever happens next, the likely consequence for the public is a sharp rise in bills as the company struggles to manage its debt and fix its sewage spill problem. There’s something nasty in this for everyone.