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Thames Water has insisted that it has sufficient funding from shareholders to carry out its commitments during the remainder of AMP7.
It comes after the firm announced yesterday (10 June) that shareholders had agreed to inject an additional £750 million into the firm, taking the total equity investment for the year to £1.25 billion. That is some £250 million shy of the £1.5 billion that Thames previously said it would need from shareholders for the current spending period.
However, when questioned by Utility Week on the funding discrepancy Thames said that it was not a paring back of commitments.
The firm added that £750 million is the maximum that it can feasibly spend during the next two years of AMP7.
The money will be used to fund environmental and performance commitments around infrastructure upgrades.
The extra funding is subject to shareholder approval of Thames’ business plan for 2025-30, which all companies are due to submit to Ofwat in October. Thames confirmed it would be submitting its plan on time. A spokesperson said: “We are still working towards submitting our AMP8 Business Plan to Ofwat in October”.
The total of £1.25 billion is higher than Ofwat approved for Thames in its 2019 business plan for this asset management period (AMP7). In AMP8, investment in the region of £2.5 billion is expected to be needed.
The shareholder announcement was published alongside Thames’ full-year financial results for 2022/23.
The results revealed a loss after tax of £30 million for 2022/23. Joanna Ford, restructuring and insolvency partner at Cripps, described the £750 million funding as “a high price to pay to safeguard their investment” in light of the losses.
“Against the threat of administration, however, which would see the value of shareholder investments wiped out, they obviously thought it was a price worth paying and must have some confidence in the troubled water supplier’s ability to implement a successful turnaround plan,” Cripps said.
Last year, the consortium of investors that includes overseas and UK pension funds committed to £1.5 billion of equity to fund the business’ turnaround.
In March this year the first instalment, £500 million, was made. Doubts over investor confidence have been made since former chief executive Sarah Bentley’s sudden departure.
At the next price review, steeper bill rises are expected to fund environmental and regulatory requirements. From October, business plans will indicate the scale of bill increases companies will pass on to customers along with what other funding sources they will explore.
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