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How in the name of holy chuffing buggery do Thames Water not have a fixed asset register?

Fresh doubt has been cast over the race to find a white knight buyer for Thames Water as it struggles to provide details of its labyrinthine network of pipes, sewage works and reservoirs.

Thames Water has stepped up the hunt for new investors willing to pump in billions of pounds of emergency capital after the Court of Appeal approved a £3bn emergency debt bailout from its existing creditors.

However, prospective suitors fear the search will be held up by the company’s failure to keep an accurate record of the mountain of assets that it has accumulated over the decades.

Thames Water has just weeks to hammer out a deal or one of the country’s most vital utilities faces a prolonged hand-to-mouth existence in which lenders drip-feed the company enough money every month to pay its bills.

“The board has to advance to the due diligence quickly but this makes that much harder. How do you put a value on the company if you don’t know what it owns?” a source close to the talks said.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/03/23/thames-water-rescue-deal-threatened-by-missing-assets/

Nationalisation might be the only answer. The only way the private sector will want to get involved is at such a low price that a profit is guaranteed for asset stripping. A period of government ownership while the basics are restored – an asset register; proper waste management rather than waiting for a storm and chucking it all in the river while limits are suspended; investment in new facilities. Account for the asset on the government's books so it does not look like the money has disappeared.

Why do we need to nationalise a profitable business? The problem with Thames isn't it's failure to generate more money than it's operating costs, it's that it's substantial operating profits are insufficient to service it's even more substantial debts.

It needs to go bust, default on the loans, wipe out the shareholders and have the core business sold on debt free - at which point problem solved.

All the current wrangling is merely attempts by the idiots who lent them too much money, and the idiots who purchased a business with an unsustainable amount of debt to avoid the inevitable consequences of their stupidity.

The only plausible government involvement might be short term financial loans or guarantes to keep the system running during the period of administration, instead of having a disorderly collapse when suppliers aren't paid.

Oh dear. What a pity. Nevermind...

https://x.com/e_casalicchio/status/1904105476133879950

Notable on that tweet the ease with which journalists describe Italy’s government as far right, in contrast to the painful contortions they go through to avoid labelling the US government in the same way.

To my eyes Trump and his administration are significantly further to the right than Meloni’s party. Certainly in the conspiracy theory / pro-Russian foreign policy / anti vax / rule of law space.

I'm finding Starmer's latest formulation on Trump quite concerning.

I've supported his diplomacy so far, and he's managed to exert a lot of influence between Trump and Ukraine so far, but to make a public show of saying he "likes him", with the stakes as they are currently for Europe and Canada, is the wrong tone to strike.

He shoukd have jusf issued the usual, more neutral boilerplate, about having a good working relationship", while buttering him in more personal terms in private, which seems to have been working well.

Trump is not generally someone who is "liked" by foreign leaders, except for autucrats, nor does he usually seek that. It makes Starmer sound even more of a butler than is necessary, and won't go down at all well with those other democratic leaders.

Taken together with the mooted talk of Starrne also offering special tax concessions to U.S. Big Tech, and there are the first concerning signs about Starmer's direction of travel on this topic.

Meanwhile, I see Reeves has adopted the right wing term ‘tax and spend’ is looking to keep President Trump happy by excluding American tech companies from a tax on American tech companies (as warned on pb).

UK mulls big tech tax changes to avoid US tariffs
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8j0dgym8w1o

This is inept - it's a pure protection racket. She's feeding sausages to an American Bully XL in the hope that it won't bite her after it has eaten the sausages. And the negotiation is starting from the USA's position, not ours.

Where's the £900m of lost revenue going to be recovered from?

What did Lord Mandelbrot advise? He had two stints as Business Secretary and 5 years as European Trade Commissioner, so has relevant background.

It can't be said "we have an agreement with Mr Trump", because Mr Trump's history is to piss on every agreement he has ever made, unless there is a metaphorical gun to his head.

How in the name of holy chuffing buggery do Thames Water not have a fixed asset register?

Fresh doubt has been cast over the race to find a white knight buyer for Thames Water as it struggles to provide details of its labyrinthine network of pipes, sewage works and reservoirs.

Thames Water has stepped up the hunt for new investors willing to pump in billions of pounds of emergency capital after the Court of Appeal approved a £3bn emergency debt bailout from its existing creditors.

However, prospective suitors fear the search will be held up by the company’s failure to keep an accurate record of the mountain of assets that it has accumulated over the decades.

Thames Water has just weeks to hammer out a deal or one of the country’s most vital utilities faces a prolonged hand-to-mouth existence in which lenders drip-feed the company enough money every month to pay its bills.

“The board has to advance to the due diligence quickly but this makes that much harder. How do you put a value on the company if you don’t know what it owns?” a source close to the talks said.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/03/23/thames-water-rescue-deal-threatened-by-missing-assets/

Put them into administration, and fire everyone at Ofwat who had any executive responsibility,

Water privatisation is a four decade saga of taking the piss.

You only have to walk around any British town centre mid-week to unearth how many people simply aren't working.

I thinknyou are taking a 1950s idea of work and projecting it into 2025.

Let me give you an example. I am a researcher. Most of my stuff is theoretical, but I do the odd empirical paper. My mode of working would be unrecognizable. Spend enormous time alone in front of a white board. Do naps and walk the dog, fiddle around in the garden mulling ideas over. Then time on long zoom converstions with coauthors followed by intense bursts of writing on my lap top in various public locations. All this leads up to submission. Put me in my office (where I do for meetings and work in the organization) my research pipeline would die. I couldn't have a single research idea there. My teaching is from September to January where I am in the auditorium.... the value I create is just not compatible with a factory or survellied office environment. So you could come across me in the middle of the day walking around with a far away look in my eye... that is me working 🤣🤣🤣