LONDON (Reuters) -The senior creditors of Thames Water aiming to lead a turnaround of the company presented their plan to fix its finances and stop the utility being nationalised, proposing on Thursday a 7.5 billion pound ($10 billion) debt write-off.
For 18 months, Thames Water has been at the centre of a scandal in Britain’s water sector, with the company fined over 100 million pounds for pollution, while its debts of over 20 billion pounds have left it close to financial collapse.
The plan from the investor group – made up of 15 institutions including Aberdeen Investments, Elliott, PIMCO and Silverpoint Capital – is the only remaining option for Thames Water to avoid the government’s special administration regime.
Water regulator Ofwat will now assess the proposal, “with the aim of reaching alignment as quickly as possible this autumn given the urgent need to stabilise Thames Water and begin to deliver long-term performance improvement”, the investor group said.
The group – named the London & Valley Water consortium – said in addition to a 3.15 billion pound equity commitment, it would write-off 4 billion of existing Class A debt, 1 billion of Class B debt, alongside an effective write-off of 2.5 billion pounds of holdco debt.
In exchange for the write-off, Class A debt will receive a minimum of 10% of the new equity, the statement said.
It also committed to pay no dividend during the turnaround process, or until the company is listed, and pledged not to sell Thames Water prior to March 2030. Under the plan, all Thames Water’s outstanding fines will be paid.
($1 = 0.7421 pounds)
(Reporting by Sarah Young; Editing by Catarina Demony)
