Close Menu
    Chinese firm a leading contender to buy Thames Water, reports say
    United Kingdom

    Chinese firm a leading contender to buy Thames Water, reports say

    Share.
    View 28 Comments

    28 Comments

    1. StresWeeting on

      Could just nationalise and not hand yet another piece of critical infrastructure to a company from a nation that regularly blurs the line between private and public interests and has a history of acting in bad faith

    2. SadSeiko on

      Why are politicians so dumb. What gain is it to have foreign companies own our water supply in London. 

    3. BaBeBaBeBooby on

      Labour desperate to nationalise a trains, which largely work, and by all accounts work better than in British Rail Days, yet they won’t nationalise critical infrastructure that clearly isn’t working. They’ve got it all wrong.

      Can only assume the rail union has great power, and nationalising is great for their members, while water has no powerful union sitting behind it.

      Also shows they act on their donors demands and not national interest. Similar to the previous govt, just different sponsors.

    4. Sea-Caterpillar-255 on

      Shitty 40 year old, not fit for purpose steel mills are a national security matter.

      The water support to our capital city? The Chinese can have that if they want it.

    5. MSweeny81 on

      Having essential infrastructure privately owned and run for profit rather than state owned and run, purely for the stability and improvement of the nation seems shortsighted at best. Having it privately owned by a foreign party who do not have the UK’s best interests in mind seems unhinged.

    6. Boredengineer_84 on

      This nonsense has got to stop. A foreign country (and a potential enemy) owning critical infrastructure like this cannot happen

    7. Aromatic_Staff_4047 on

      Great. Not content with our money ending up in the designer handbags and wallets of previous shareholders, we’re now expected to give the Chinese economy a hand. Wtf are they thinking???

    8. Thegreatbrainrobbery on

      Its beggars belief how the company with a monopoly on water could go bankrupt, but then that’s capitalism in a nutshell. Take out of billions in loans and dividends refuse to invest. Just utter greed, this is the perfect time to bring it back into the public ownership but no Labour wants to speed run into oblivion next election.

    9. shrunkenshrubbery on

      Are they going to recapitalise it or have they uncovered some more assets to strip? Or will just squeeze the British people for more cash with higher bills and get a phat handout from the state too.

    10. Able_Marketing_7104 on

      Have they already not learned from the likes of Tata steel?

      A critical piece of infrastructure should not be for profit. Nationalise it!

    11. SignalButterscotch73 on

      Nationalising is the only answer, nobody else in the world has been stupid enough to have fully privatised water.

      The amount of debt these water companies have is close to equal to the amount they’ve paid out in dividends according to Wikipedia, showing that they should have always been non profit services.

      (Okay, I guess we didn’t fully either if you want to be pedantic since Scotland isn’t privatised and we’re still the UK)

    12. PackageOk4947 on

      Given that we might actually go to war with China, *do we think this is a good fucking idea*?

    16. Alternative_Guitar78 on

      Just the fact that this Hong Kong bank wants to buy a firm that faces massive liabilities in the near future in terms of fines and required infrastructure upgrades, and the current shareholders have made nothing out of it for years, has got to be a massive red flag in itself!

    19. Jensen1994 on

      FFS here we go again. “Learning lessons” is a common trope in the UK yet we never learn lessons.

    22. Notmysubmarine on

      Stop selling off critical national infrastructure to foreign companies for fucks sake.

    24. kudos75 on

      Our politicians are too damn lazy and stupid to do this ….. they will happily let someone else deal with the problems, and they might get a nice donation too.

    25. RoutineCloud5993 on

      Oh so now we’re not just siphoning off the money into private investors, we’re siphoning them out of the country too

    26. Longjumping-Bus4577 on

      Do we have to renationalise things, can`t we just set up alternative state owned, and allow the public to pick between the ones that are in it to profit and the one that is in it to invest back into the country?.