Election Year or Fear!

[Geoff Parkstone]

... and it's Thames who have not invested in repairs and maintenance, built up huge debts yet still think it's OK to pay out billions in shareholder dividends and get emergency loans from the taxpayer. And there was I thinking dividends were shareholder's cut of the profits... it seems that you can lose billions, have billions of pounds worth of R&M backlogs but still look after your shareholders. The R&M has to be done. Thames is broke. The taxpayer and Thames' customers will have to pay for it. Might as well nationalise it and avoid having to pay for dividends on the back of losses. The taxpayer has covered the losses. Water is a necessity. Get the R&M done, screw the shareholders who, IMO, have been undeservedly getting dividend for years, nationalise Thames and, if it ever turns a profit, it goes into the Treasury rather than shareholder bank accounts.

I'm not anti shareholder. I do, however, believe that dividends on the back of perennial losses is abhorrent. I also believe that utilities such as gas, electric, water and maybe more things, should be provided to the public at cost. There shouldn't be a profit made out of necessities.

Under company law a company can only pay dividends out of retained profits, not out of for example capital.

You might care to fact check your assertion that billions have been paid out in dividends when billions have been made in losses.

If this had been done then the directors and auditors should be held personally responsible

[ramAnag]

Under company law a company can only pay dividends out of retained profits, not out of for example capital.

You might care to fact check your assertion that billions have been paid out in dividends when billions have been made in losses.

If this had been done then the directors and auditors should be held personally responsible

You have a more professional insight into such matters than most,Rog, but the facts seem to be that Thames Water has accrued 22 billion GDP of debt since it was privatised in 1989 and that it only recently ceased paying dividends to shareholders.
I believe they’ve paid out 7 billion GDP in dividends since privatisation, which would seem to back up MA’s assertion. I also believe they’re unlikely to pay further dividends before 2030, but that seems to be a case of ‘shutting the proverbial stable door after the horse has bolted’.

Perfectly happy to be corrected if I’ve misunderstood.

[Geoff Parkstone]

As an initial observation, accruing debt does not mean the same as making trading losses. Consider you probably have been in debt much of your life via mortgage, but you still had income via salary.

The cessor of dividends recently suggests they no longer have retained earnings to distribute and aren't budgeting for any going forward.

So sorry, the above is not fact checking on historic performance which is understandable as you're not an accountant.

I'll have a look myself - have no great skin in the game as to whether Thames Water acted illegally or not but I do doubt it given the scrutiny that they've been under in recent years.

[ramAnag]

As an initial observation, accruing debt does not mean the same as making trading losses. Consider you probably have been in debt much of your life via mortgage, but you still had income via salary.

The cessor of dividends recently suggests they no longer have retained earnings to distribute and aren't budgeting for any going forward.

So sorry, the above is not fact checking on historic performance which is understandable as you're not an accountant.

I'll have a look myself - have no great skin in the game as to whether Thames Water acted illegally or not but I do doubt it given the scrutiny that they've been under in recent years.

I don’t think either MA or I mentioned legality. He just raised the morality - or otherwise - of a company being allowed to pay significant dividends at a time of even more significant financial loss. It seems particularly wrong, as he suggested, when the company is concerned with the delivery of essential services such as fresh water and responsible sewage treatment.

[Geoff Parkstone]

Listen to yourself for a minute. They would not have been able to pay dividends if, in so doing, they contravened company law. Therefore the inference is there must have been profits accumulated in the company to allow it. Morality has nothing to do with thay process.

Where morality does come into play would be if they chose to pay dividends out of profits when they knew infrastructure was collapsing around them and they could afford to fix it but chose not to.

[ramAnag]

Listen to yourself for a minute. They would not have been able to pay dividends if, in so doing, they contravened company law. Therefore the inference is there must have been profits accumulated in the company to allow it. Morality has nothing to do with thay process.

Where morality does come into play would be if they chose to pay dividends out of profits when they knew infrastructure was collapsing around them and they could afford to fix it but chose not to.

As I’ve already acknowledged, you have a far greater knowledge of all the technical, legislative, accountancy stuff, but I suspect that second paragraph confirms my suspicions and possibly, although I can’t speak for him, MA’s.

[Geoff Parkstone]

As I’ve already acknowledged, you have a far greater knowledge of all the technical, legislative, accountancy stuff, but I suspect that second paragraph confirms my suspicions and possibly, although I can’t speak for him, MA’s.

If you really want to see, rather than just arguing for the sake of it, look here

https://www.thameswater.co.uk/media-...rt-2024-25.pdf

Go to the statement of financial position on page 105. You will see that at 31-03-2025 the company has indeed got accumulated losses of 641.8m, but look at the 2024 comparartives and you will see that, a year earlier, it had retained profits of 833.9m, so too the year before that 916.7m.

Now without going back through history to see if those accumulated profits or losses dippedin any one year or more, I cannot be sure, but am reasonably confident in asserting that Thames Water has not made billions in losses over time, but rather just in the last financial year - a year where you stated they had ceased paying dividends. Furthermore the total losses made over the company's history stoold at 641.8m rather than 10's of billions.

Also please note that this figure is after having paid out all the earlier billions of dividends complained about.

As your mate says "FACTS" unless of course you believe that the official audited financial statements are a fabrication (possibly of the right wing media ).

In the above I am not seeking to defend Thames Water, who seem guilty of failing to invest in the future and deserve to be dismantled if they are now insolvent, but lets at least deal with their predicament based on facts and not rhetoric (now where ahve I heard that before)

[MadAmster]

A company has built up massive debts of getting on for 20Bn. That same company, has accrued a backlog of repairs and maintenance estimated to cost 15Bn to catch up on. That same company has paid Billions out in dividends while increasing customer bills.

It might be legal to have paid out those dividends. If it is then the Law needs changing. IMO, that company is morally bankrupt.

I'd be interested to hear/read who exactly they think is going to:

1. Pay off the massive debts they have.
2. Pay to eradicate the R&M backlog

[SithHappens]

Why would immigrants want to poach swans anyway. From what Nigel and the media tell us they are all living it up in 5 star hotels...

[Geoff Parkstone]

A company has built up massive debts of getting on for 20Bn. That same company, has accrued a backlog of repairs and maintenance estimated to cost 15Bn to catch up on. That same company has paid Billions out in dividends while increasing customer bills.

It might be legal to have paid out those dividends. If it is then the Law needs changing. IMO, that company is morally bankrupt.

I'd be interested to hear/read who exactly they think is going to:

1. Pay off the massive debts they have.
2. Pay to eradicate the R&M backlog

If you look at the balance sheet you will see that substantial borrowing is matched with substantial fixed assets - presumably the historic investment in infrastructure, buildings. ,vehicles etc. It's likely not been used to fund past losses. Their biggest problem is funding the cost of that debt going forward, and that can only be done by further borrowing (an unsustainable spiral) or big price hikes (unacceptable to OFWAT). Even if they could afford to resolve that problem this still doesn't give them the ability to invest in future infrastructure.

Repaying the existing debt?Dunno but not sure what repayment terms are on it - it might be perpetual and so not need repaying any time soon?

After all who is going to pay back the national debt! It's a big enough issue trying to service that, so perhaps the TW financing model is just a smaller version of UK plc.

Remember the UK war loans issued in 1932 to o pay for WW1 weren't paid off for 83 years until 2015