Thames Water paid out bonuses using £3bn emergency loan, documents reveal

46 comments

1. Everyone knew they would and they did. At least they are consistent at being shit heads.

2. They’re already in debt to the government with *billions*.

   Just renationalise them and arrest the managers for corruption.

3. If you have to take an emergency loan of £3 billion, how the f the executives deserve a bonus and not a bloody pay cut? What the hell is going on? 

4. Could the loan not have had conditions, ‘ie will only be used to improve infrastructure’, or something like that?

5. Insane, imagine being in that much debt and thinking ur doing well, or pretending to, and giving urself a bonus

6. They’re taking the piss now. This is absolutely ridiculous.

7. But of course, they can’t keep the “excellent” staff who got them in this mess without doing so.

   Blood sucking scum, the lot of them.

8. Nationalise, wipe out the shareholders and the bondholders. It speaks volumes about the state of the UK government that this has dragged on for years.

9. The Most Evil Utility Company is a hard fought for title but surely it is Thames Water.

10. “Bonuses more than double their salaries”

    Incompetent liars and thieves are rewarded in this country.

    Don’t worry, though. The public will pay for it.

11. Oooh that’s nice, they are deserving … of jail time.

12. Corruption this. Just plain wrong.

    Who are the people specifically? We need to Name them.

13. >Montague said the board did not intend to recover the money, and suggested the two further tranches of bonuses could still be paid.

    Not even trying to hide the grift.

14. Whoever received those bonuses should be forced to pay them back to the taxpayer, and if they refuse, the government should seize their assets.

15. Bigger pieces of shit than what they’re putting in our waterways

16. [removed]

17. Tbh, there should be directors liability for this fiasco.

18. Penalise to at least double the payments. Ofwat or whoever is in charge of the oversight here needs complete overhaul.

19. And yet people are flocking to vote for the “right of Thatcher” Reform Party – and don’t join the dots.

20. On the bright side, now they got their bonuses they won’t leave, get hired at another water company and fuck it up (even more) than it already is else where in the country.

21. Legalised corruption – why are we putting up with this?

    Our water is dirty, no new reservoirs in 30 years, leaky pipes, and they are billions in debt.

    They are laughing at us.

22. Water companies are in market failure. This can’t persist and those bonuses should look to be recouped

    How can it be that a company that is hanging by a thread, award bonuses to reward ineptitude and greed?

23. Just milking it dry at this point. They know the inevitable is coming and just taking as much as they can before it’s all gone.

24. How is such a blatantly and cartoonishly corrupt service provider still allowed to operate? I just don’t get it. Purchase it for a pound, lock up the board and go after the shareholders. Gvt is so quick to apply maximum power and pressure when the rest of us get it wrong, why not these twats?

    Edit to add: at what point do we need to start looking at OFWAT for its *obvious* complacency and possible corruption here?

25. Okay come on, this is surely the point it’s enough?

    At what point are we going to physically mass at Westminster and *TELL* the government they WILL, IMMEDIATELY, renationalise the water infrastructure? We’re past asking, surely? Is it not time to physically **make** them do it?

26. Just nationalise them and get it over with. It’s beyond a joke at this point.

27. Yet again this farcical company never cease to surprise me.

28. Right to call for renationalising- but then the government also picks up all their shit too.

    But this is plain corruption and nuts it wasn’t factored into the loans T&Cs

29. The CEO just got a summons, we may finally see Thames Water get in trouble… hopefully.

30. And that money will never be recovered. They’ve stolen from the public and it’s just like ‘eh.’

31. Where there’s muck there’s brass, it pays to pump human waste into our rivers.

    Nice work for some, stay in your job for another 12 months on a salary up to £400k, receive another £1.13m on top for the year as a bonus.

    From the article linked:
    “The total planned payments are on average far more than double the salaries of the unnamed recipients, according to a table included in documents released by the committee. For instance, four people with salaries of up to £400,000 are due to receive up to £1.13m each – nearly three years’ extra pay –as long as they stay at the business for the next year.”

    Remind me who left OFWAT to sit on the board of Thames Water again?

32. How in the actual cunting fuck is this not fraud. They should all be in prison, the law needs to change if this isn’t possible.

33. They told us this would happen(they being Thames water) 

    Some executives were in line for “50 per cent of salary; very substantial bonuses” as part of the loan agreed with creditors including the US hedge funds Elliott Management and Silver Point Capital, Thames Water chair Sir Adrian Montague told parliamentarians on Tuesday.

    Montague claimed that Thames Water had to keep paying bonuses to prevent rival companies from “picking off” its best employees.

    https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/comments/1kmi7li/thames_water_executives_to_receive_bonuses_from/

34. Not really sure why Labour is going harder at them on this, if nothing else this would be such an easy win on PR front which they are getting hammered at on all other fronts, at the moment I don’t think there’s any public support for Thames Water, not even if the die hard Reform voters yet Labour is so silent on this issue

35. As I’m tired of saying and I’m happy to be corrected – yes this appears 100% wrong, however the route cause of this (ignoring Thatcher and the third Party influences on her) is the Macquarie Group isn’t and what happened under the ownership, not specifically what’s been going on in the last 6 years?

36. These people need to see the inside of a prison cell. Anything less is an insult to the UK population.

37. There is no good argument for refusing to nationalise these company’s other than corruption, conflict of interest and ideological stubbornness.

    The fact a Labour government is desperate to maintain this failed privatised model is depressing.

38. My family are currently in the process of taking legal action against TW and even though and it’s open and shut they’re drawing it out as long as possible. Cunts.

39. ‘Minutes from a Thames board meeting, which was convened to discuss the bonuses, suggested the retention payments were designed to avoid the new legislation, which bans performance-related bonuses for water bosses.’

    Is anyone going to arrest them, then? Surely, we have achieved the stage at which someone should be made responsible for blatantly misappropriating of the loan funds and possibly intentional asset stripping? The government needs to grow a spine and put this company into administration, go through the books with fine tooth comb and start prosecuting bosses. Nationalisation only means they get away with mismanagement while we pick up the bill (again).

40. They are filling their pockets with tax payers money knowing they are on borrowed time, Its past time we prosecuted the bosses and nationalised the water.

41. Despite being categorically told that the £3 billion bailout wasn’t to be used for bonuses.

    The whole lot should be hauled up for fraud.

42. To use a taxpayer loan meant to keep the company afloat to then pay bonuses, betters belief.

    At what point does this become corruption and require the police to investigate the possibility of criminal charges against the directors that authorised these bonuses?

43. Cool so can we put some of these bosses in prison please? Or have we just stopped even pretending that people are held accountable?

44. Just nationalise them already

    They have shown time and time again that they can’t be trusted to run a company

45. Reckless capitalism especially on utilities has consequences, Thatcher created this chaos & so much more.

46. Stop the pretence of it being a private company, it’s failed. It’s a public utility, with a natural monopoly, that is requiring ever greater amounts of money from everywhere to pay out private investors.

    Meanwhile the service is getting worse, infrastructure degrading, and the money to keep the pretence up is increasing.

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