Thames Water faces new liquidity crisis in spring without investment

THAMES Water bosses today issued a bleak warning that London's biggest water supplier will run out of money by May next year without major injections of cash from investors.

- Jonathan Prynn

The troubled utility, which serves around 16 million customers, said it had a "liquidity runway" of about 11 months before it burns through existing cash resources and unused bank facilities.

At the end of June, total liquidity was £1.8 billion, down £600 million from the financial year end in March

The heavily indebted company, which reported underlying profits after tax of £140 million for the year to the end of March, a turnaround of £272 million, is now waiting on a draft determination from regulator Ofwat about the level of bills it can set for the next five years.

It has asked for the go ahead to push up average bills by 59% by 2030, a period known in the industry as PR24, but a rise on this scale is likely to be seen as acceptable by Ofwat.