Thames Water refuses to claw back bonuses

[Super Sonic]

Thames Water refuses to claw back bonuses paid using £3bn emergency loan | Thames Water | The Guardian https://share.google/nXPI6XFnrv0C7kr3J

[soad]

Doesn’t surprise me. Not sure it can go on for much longer?

[Murph7355]

Difficult to change it without unintended consequences, but some elements of company law in the UK really need a revisit...

[wc98]

The chief executive of Thames water is the epitome of much of what is wrong with the UK today. Never mind blaming those with the least its greedy useless bds like that continually raping public and private institutions that have led the spiral down the stter though in Thames case the st unfortunately ends up in waterways and the sea.

He would make a fine politician as i imagine he will be very capable when it comes to justifying the unjustifiable. The people running that organisation should be in jail given what has gone on, not rewarded for abject failure.

[jonsp]

Seems this was a commercial loan not a government bailout/grant.

In that case wouldn't it be up to the lender not the government whether bonuses are paid with their money? The lenders may have said we can't lose the management team at this point so we'll need to bonus them to stay

[JagLover]

jonsp said:

Seems this was a commercial loan not a government bailout/grant.

In that case wouldn't it be up to the lender not the government whether bonuses are paid with their money? The lenders may have said we can't lose the management team at this point so we'll need to bonus them to stay

It seems to be a commercial loan yes and they have thought £2.5m out of the amount lent was needed to keep senior staff in place. Certainly many will start jumping ship from a struggling company under public scrutiny.

Whether it was justified then depends on how vital they are to the running of the company, and how likely they are to have left otherwise.

I think the public will not be able to discuss this calmly and rationally though as it is the water companies. Better to have them publicly owned again because at least then, if they continue to fail, it will not raise people's blood pressure by so much.

[CT05 Nose Cone]

So if I'm understanding it correctly they fail utterly at their jobs, but are being given a bonus worth 3 years of salary from the taxpayer to ensure they don't leave?

[rider73]

It's easy. They gets as much loan money as possible from all sources to gain Thier massive salary, because they know UK gov, our money i, will take over the company when it finally goes under and the big guys at the top have to leave, it's not a company that can just close it's branches and we go elsewhere.
It's a fricking gravy train with no consequences for them

As said above, it's everything that's wrong with UK yet politicians fear to change it....

We're not in the EU anymore, we can buy all our public services back ...the biggest issue is the private sector has sucked them all dry of money and run them all into the ground.
It never should have happened and should have been reversed under Blair. Now it's too late for rail, buses, water and energy,

[Super Sonic]

CT05 Nose Cone said:

So if I'm understanding it correctly they fail utterly at their jobs, but are being given a bonus worth 3 years of salary from the taxpayer to ensure they don't leave?

That's pretty much how I understand it, except maybe change 'being given' to 'helping themselves to'.

[98elise]

Super Sonic said:

CT05 Nose Cone said:

So if I'm understanding it correctly they fail utterly at their jobs, but are being given a bonus worth 3 years of salary from the taxpayer to ensure they don't leave?

That's pretty much how I understand it, except maybe change 'being given' to 'helping themselves to'.

Its not taxpayers money.

[Greenmantle]

98elise said:

Super Sonic said:

CT05 Nose Cone said:

So if I'm understanding it correctly they fail utterly at their jobs, but are being given a bonus worth 3 years of salary from the taxpayer to ensure they don't leave?

That's pretty much how I understand it, except maybe change 'being given' to 'helping themselves to'.

Its not taxpayers money.

Just consider Thames Water as a rogue corporation then it makes sense!
The government either has to let it carry on doing its own thing or nuke it.
Talking about Thames Water is just a waste of time.
Its been rotten / rogue ever since Macquarie Days.

[NRS]

98elise said:

Super Sonic said:

CT05 Nose Cone said:

So if I'm understanding it correctly they fail utterly at their jobs, but are being given a bonus worth 3 years of salary from the taxpayer to ensure they don't leave?

That's pretty much how I understand it, except maybe change 'being given' to 'helping themselves to'.

Its not taxpayers money.

It effectively partly will be though? Money loaned to help company but paid to presumably poor leaders. Could have been invested in improving the company. Yes, the lender will likely lose a bunch and have to take x pennies on the pound, but if it was put into improvements in infrastructure that would mean less taxpayer money being used on that in future.

Asset stripping stuff like water ends up on the taxpayer because the continued lack of investment due to the money going elsewhere (shareholders, big bonuses and salaries etc) has to get covered in the future and will take years of huge investments to fix.

[The Ferret]

And now they're warning of a possible hosepipe ban

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cg75vm2ykdmo

Good luck with that one.

My bill has gone up 50% in the last year or so. It's done nothing but rain for the last 12 months before this warm spell. Wherever you go around Oxford there are leaks pissing water everywhere. I'll do as I please until they start addressing the real issues.

[PorkInsider]

jonsp said:

Seems this was a commercial loan not a government bailout/grant.

In that case wouldn't it be up to the lender not the government whether bonuses are paid with their money? The lenders may have said we can't lose the management team at this point so we'll need to bonus them to stay

Sounds plausible and, to be fair, you'd have to be clinically insane to lend money this bunch of morons who've wasted much of the investors' money they've previously had, so why not also agree to giving the extra pay...

[wiggy001]

The Ferret said:

And now they're warning of a possible hosepipe ban

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cg75vm2ykdmo

Good luck with that one.

My bill has gone up 50% in the last year or so. It's done nothing but rain for the last 12 months before this warm spell. Wherever you go around Oxford there are leaks pissing water everywhere. I'll do as I please until they start addressing the real issues.

2 things:

1. I will reduce my water "wastage" after Thames Water do. As you say, the amount of waste (money and water) is criminal
2. I am on a water meter so the more water I use, the more profit for TW and the more they can invest in their infrastructure [sic]

That said, Yorkshire police have had to ask local residents not to use 999 to report people watering their begonias

[NoPackDrill]

I can’t decide whether we’re living in an immensely ambitious bit of performance art with an anti-capitalist message . . . or have the mice planned a fiendish psychological experiment to find the breaking point of people forced to transfer wealth to foreign corporations, venture capitalists, and senior executives, in the form of fees to take our own st and empty it into our rivers?

[Spare tyre]

The Ferret said:

And now they're warning of a possible hosepipe ban

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cg75vm2ykdmo

Good luck with that one.

My bill has gone up 50% in the last year or so. It's done nothing but rain for the last 12 months before this warm spell. Wherever you go around Oxford there are leaks pissing water everywhere. I'll do as I please until they start addressing the real issues.

Ours went up 48% at this bill

We were without water for 4 days in December

For the last week we have had a leak in our village running down the road into a drain, it’s enough water to carry an empty coke can along (entertainment for a toddler)

I don’t use a hose pipe but this time round I would if I needed to

How you can give mega bonus out with this performance is shameful

[daqinggregg]

According to our media, ‘public services’ are staffed by feckless, lazy jobsworths, who will do nothing more than provide a basic service, basic service, sounds good to me!