In what can only be described as the financial equivalent of showing up to a party uninvited and then demanding the host pay for your drinks, Thames Water’s lenders have made their position crystal clear: if Andy Burnham even thinks about nationalizing the company, they will pursue every penny of the multi-billion-pound debt owed to them. Because apparently, that is how capitalism works now.
The creditors—a collection of banks and investment firms who have spent years collecting interest on Thames Water’s spiraling problems—are reportedly preparing legal challenges. Their argument, according to sources, boils down to: “We gave them money once, so we deserve to be paid back in full, even if the entire water system is collapsing and someone else has to fix it.”
It is a bold strategy. Bold in the way that demanding a refund from a restaurant after you have already eaten the meal is bold. The lenders seem genuinely shocked that anyone would suggest they might absorb even a fraction of the losses from their own questionable lending decisions. Why should they, after all? They are heroes. They provided capital. The fact that Thames Water has spent that capital and then some on dividends, executive bonuses, and failing to maintain basic infrastructure is surely someone else’s problem.
The real comedy here is watching these financial institutions simultaneously argue that they deserve full payment while also implying that if they do not get it, the entire system will collapse. It is extortion dressed up in pinstripe suits and quarterly earnings calls. And somehow, it might actually work.