Thames Water Lenders Prepare Legal Challenge Over Burnham Nationalisation

Thames Water’s lenders are preparing a legal challenge if a Burnham-led government tries to nationalise the UK’s biggest water company, according to BBC reported. The creditors are also ready to demand full payment of Thames Water’s outstanding debts in a full nationalisation scenario, which could leave the government with a multi-billion-pound bill. Thames Water is about £20bn in debt and warned on Thursday that it has enough cash to last until the end of this year. Its lenders have proposed writing off nearly half the debt and injecting new cash, including £9.4bn of debt write-off and £3.35bn of funding, in return for leniency on future pollution fines, but the government has already rejected that plan as weak.