17 October 2006
Thames Water has been sold to Australian consortium Macquarie Bank in an £8 billion deal.
Parent company REW has sold off the highly criticised water company just six years after first buying it for £4.8 billion.
Over recent months, Thames Water has been highly criticised for missing government leakage targets and high customer bills, despite announcing a 31% rise in half-year profits.
Commenting on the "sale", uSwitch.com said that the acquisition could be good news for consumers, providing Macquarie doesn't sacrifice investment in the company for shareholder returns.
Ann Robinson, Director of Consumer Policy at uSwitch.com, said: "We just hope that Ofwat has imposed the necessary conditions on the sale to ensure that the minimum required investment is guaranteed, in order to carry out much needed infrastructure repair work to meet leakage targets.
"Our concern is that with a sale price of £8billion, Thames Water's 8 million customers will come a poor second to the new owners' shareholders. It is likely that Macquarie's focus will lie in justifying the investment to shareholders through the promise of substantial returns, this would lead to money being diverted away from repair works and into shareholder's pockets instead."
She added: "Over the past year consumers have continually suffered at the hands of Thames Water, with the constant imposition of hose pipe bans and water restrictions. This has coincided with the water company consecutively missing its leakage targets, with old water pipes leaking 3.6 billion litres of water a day - but it is consumers who have paid the price through increased tariffs and water restrictions.
"Thames Water has attracted widespread criticism over the last few months - its 31% profits announcement in June coincided with rising tariffs and the imposition of hose pipe bans".
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