Sir Geoffrey has received this update from Thames Water.

“On 25th October, Thames Water announced plans to extend the company’s liquidity runway from December 2024 to September 2025.  This could then be extended further to March 2026 if we decide to appeal to the Competition and Markets Authority over Ofwat’s final decision on what we are required to deliver and price limits for the period 2025-30.  The plans include up to £3 billion of new money in addition to debt extensions and access to cash reserves.

This is good news for the company and is the best option available as it will provide further stability and improve our liquidity, enabling us to continue with our planned investment and maintenance of our infrastructure so we can continue to meet our customers’ needs and our environmental responsibilities.  It will also provide the space and time to progress our work to raise additional equity and complete a recapitalisation of the business, and to complete the Final Determination process, including an appeal if necessary.

Today’s update will not have an impact on our customer bills and will not change what we are asking for from Ofwat in response to its draft determination on prices. 

We are also publishing details of potential unfunded costs and/or fines across a range of investigations and environmental programmes and related delivery constraints that we face.  We have done this for the sake of transparency to creditors and potential investors and we continue to engage with all our regulators about them.

Today’s announcement is a positive step in our plan to stabilise and turnaround the business and follows the recent news that Ofwat has improved our annual operational performance rating.”

An overview of the details of the announcement are shown through the link below.

https://www.thameswater.co.uk/news/liquidity-extension-update