Revealed: more than 70% of English water industry is in foreign ownership | Water

27 comments
  1. It’s kinda funny how we and the west in general have spent decades getting foreign countries to open their economies to our companies and investment, and to privatise their state run enterprises and now we find out we’re the ones that have had everything sold out from under us.

  2. Foreign control of national infrastructure (especially with something as vital as water) is arguably very dangerous. Crazy to think the government even let this happen.

  3. Given enough time, 70% of England as a whole will be under foreigners. Nearly there with London.

  4. Seems like this is the right “migration” to tackle.

    Damn foreigners taking away valuable national infrastructure.

  5. Look at more or less any publicly listed company and the shareholder list will look somewhat similar. Institutional investors will often end up at the top of the lists of large shareholders.

    However just because companies like Blackrock, Vanguard, and so on are based in the US doesn’t mean that the ultimate shareholders are. Many of them offer investment funds, pensions, and so on around the world, and a lot of Blackrock and Vanguard’s customers will be UK based. My pension and ISA are both in Vanguard funds, and I’m sure I own small amounts of the major British water companies as part of those investments.

  6. “take back control” they said, yeah how about we let Brits own the utilities. not EU Governments.

    ​

    Why is it ok for the French to own our electricity, but god forbid we have MEPs?

  7. Here in Austria privatizing public water resources is a big No-No. Everybody who allows this is an idiot.

  8. > For example the Qatar Investment Authority is the third largest shareholder in Severn Trent, with a 4.6% holding, while almost 10% is held by the US investment company BlackRock and its subsidiaries, according to analysis of shareholdings as of October this year.

    > A subsidiary of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority has a 9.9% stake in Thames Water, while 8.7% is owned by China, the analysis shows.

    Foreign countries should not control our water and especially not countries that are state capitalists.

  9. As far as im aware the only countries with privitised water are:
    Chile, the Czech Republic, Armenia, and three African countries – Côte d’Ivoire, Gabon and Senegal
    Not even the Americans are mad enough to privitise water.

  10. this is why the west hates china. because it’ll never prostitute its peoples companies to other countries.

    and you can be sure the politicians who sold off our water/ national services are on the boards of these companies taking dividends.

  11. Nothing more English than the British selling everything we’ve built off to foreign interests to make a quick quid.

  12. Why the fuck are we letting foreign entities control such vital infrastructure? Fucking hell

  13. Same with everything – trains being another obvious one. I recently read that despite us being a leader in offshore wind farms we actually only own 3% of them.

  14. Good old Tories, probably got shares in each of the foreign companies, because they are off shore and won’t pay taxes on them. Parasites.

  15. Real fun how it’s like every one of the issues the country faces has a villan in a scooby doo suit and every time the mask is off its thatcher. Again. To no ones susprise.

  16. It’s not just water, which should be free, but also the railways,Buses, Post Office and energy.

    All should be in public ownership.

  17. The Tories promised a free Britain and a better Britain, free of socialism or care. They bluffed is into being held to ransom by foreign markets and psychopaths.

  18. Not surprised Tory government that doesn’t want to govern so now it’s all going wrong they can say nothing to do with us it’s a private company money grabbing Tory bastard s

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