Thames Water agrees fine payment plan as future hangs in balance

Cash-strapped Thames Water has agreed a outgo program with regulators to screen disconnected a grounds good that threatened to exacerbate its fiscal difficulties.

Britain's biggest supplier was to wage £24.5m of the £122.7m sum by September 30 nether the agreement.

Ofwat, which imposed the penalty successful May for breaches of its rules implicit sewage discharges and dividend payments, said the equilibrium would beryllium owed erstwhile a rescue financing woody was agreed oregon if it was placed into a peculiar medication authorities by the government.

Money latest: Should I fix? Reaction to vigor terms headdress shift

Sky News revealed earlier this month that Steve Reed, the situation secretary, had signed disconnected the assignment of FTI Consulting to assistance with contingency readying for putting Thames into a peculiar medication regime.

It further meant that FTI was the frontrunner to enactment arsenic the company's administrator, should Thames neglect to unafraid its backstage assemblage bailout.

Sky's City exertion Mark Kleinman said that the woody connected the table, that would spot Thames's lenders injecting astir £5bn of caller superior and penning disconnected astir £12bn of worth crossed its superior structure, was perchance babelike connected Ofwat's handling of the h2o firm's fines.

Thames has argued it needs fiscal abstraction to warrant is turnaround.

Thames initially had until 20 August to wage the £122.7m sum but it requested the statement of a outgo plan.

Ofwat's woody with Thames lone kicks the tin down the road.

The regulator said connected Wednesday that it had acceptable a "backstop date" of 31 March 2030 for the remaining penalties.

Thames Water said the fines would not beryllium paid for retired of lawsuit bills.

It added: "The institution continues to enactment intimately with stakeholders to unafraid a market-led recapitalisation which delivers for customers and the situation arsenic soon arsenic practicable."

The statement was announced arsenic the h2o watchdog prepares to beryllium abolished nether authorities plans to bolster oversight of the industry.

Lynn Parker, elder manager of enforcement astatine Ofwat, said: "This outgo program continues to clasp Thames Water to relationship for their failures but besides recognises the ongoing equity rise and recapitalisation process.

"Our absorption remains connected ensuring that the institution takes the close steps to present a turnaround successful its operational show and fortify its fiscal resilience to the payment of customers."