Thames Water creditors offer £1bn 'sweetener' in rescue deal

Thames Water’s largest radical of creditors is to connection an further £1bn-plus sweetener successful a bid to transportation Ofwat and the authorities to prosecute a rescue woody with them that would caput disconnected the nationalisation of Britain's biggest h2o utility.

Sky News has learnt that the elder creditors, which relationship for astir £13bn of Thames Water's top-ranking debt, volition suggest this period that they inject hundreds of millions of pounds of caller equity and constitute disconnected a important further information of their existing capital.

In total, the other equity and indebtedness haircut are understood to full astir £1.25bn, though the precise divided betwixt them was unclear connected Monday evening.

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The numbers were inactive taxable to being finalised arsenic portion of a broad program to beryllium submitted to Ofwat, according to radical adjacent to the process.

Thames Water has astir 16 cardinal customers and serves astir a 4th of the UK population.

The creditor group, which includes funds specified arsenic Elliott Management and Silver Point Capital, is racing to unafraid backing for a woody that would debar seeing their investments efficaciously wiped retired successful a peculiar medication authorities (SAR).

Sky News revealed past period that Steve Reed, the situation secretary, had authorised the assignment of FTI Consulting, a City restructuring firm, to counsel connected contingency readying for a SAR.

On Monday, The Times reported that Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, had reaffirmed the government's tendency to spot a "market-based solution" to the situation astatine Thames Water.

The company's main radical of creditors had already offered £3bn of caller equity and astir £2bn of indebtedness financing, which, alongside different elements, represented a astir 20pc haircut connected their existing vulnerability to Thames Water.

On Tuesday, the creditors are expected to acceptable retired further details of their operational plans for the company, successful an effort to allay concerns that they are insufficiently experienced to instrumentality connected the task of moving the UK's biggest h2o company.