MPs should not accept any murky answers from Thames Water chair on potential sale | Nils Pratley

HUrrah, Sir Adrian Montage, Chair Times waterIt is scheduled to make another of its rare general manifestations. On Tuesday, the Environmental Selection Committee will be the forum 18 months ago Give a strong signal The company’s financial crisis was worse than fear.

Montage said that the shareholders, in their confrontation with the organizer of the bills, wanted to know that the work is “investing in investment.” After three months, these investors decided that he was not and refused to put another penny. That forced the current re -financing competition that witnessed KKR, the American Special Arrows Group, It was chosen as a preferred bidding at the end of March.

Representatives of pressure on montage must have three points. First, why KKR? The company is a large investor in infrastructure projects all over the world, so it is definitely eligible to be reliable from a financial perspective, even if half of the task in the Times fixes a public budget destroyed by another group of financiers (Macquarie).

But what about the other half – in fact it manages the most important and worrying Europe? Surprisingly, neither the Times nor KKR described aloud how the business will be managed differently, or when customers expect to see a better service and less sludge in rivers. The action plan was classified from 2025-30 of the “insufficient” Times by the organizer, Offat, in April. By when KKR aspires to sufficiency? The Times Announcing the four paragraphs In March, only some lower financial details were provided, such as haircuts for senior bond holders, which were already known.

The customer’s angle also concerns the second question: Why did the Times entered the final care stage with only one party interested?

It is known that Offa wanted to offer offers in this mixture in the end to provide competing option and visions, so why does the Times Council think that only one does? It was a clear alternative CK InfrastructureThat has 75 % of the northern water, one of the best performance water companies, compared to 25 % of KKR and carried its share for many other years.

There are possible explanations. The offers of the shows could have made the grinding process longer than ever, or more expensive (this is the fee bonus of the city’s consultants already). Or perhaps one or both of them rejected the last two to move on an exclusive basis.

But the Thames River Council is ultimately responsible for this process. It can have rules at first to require competition to the end. Therefore, the government, and the other can an abnormally quiet observer for procedures.

In the absence of explanations, you cannot blame the proverbs of the economist Sir Dieter Hilm in favor of Conclusion A-Class holders are trying to sell the company to the “most thinking of what is in their interest”-and in other words, those that will offer the smallest haircuts. Cleaning the first customer may impose greater losses for bond holders.

Then there is a third question that has been overlooked since the choice of KKR: What is “organizational support and residence, that is. The Times said earlier in March Most of the potential showcases were insisted (there were six at that point). The best guess is that it involves in the form of deals, or understanding, which concludes the potential suspended Times fines.

From the viewpoint of the bidder, it will make sense to define such obligations. But we should also not be informed of any kind of organizational settlements that are considered to be thought to produce the appropriate policy of removing the Times from the private administration, nicknamed temporary nationalization? Not “organizational residence places” only Request for private treatment?

The important point is that controlling an organized company with 20 billion pounds of assets and 16 million customers seems likely to change with an extraordinary external audit. Offaat’s desire for offers offers has been ignored. Treasury, I mentioned the guardianThe pressure has increased to complete a deal by informing the environmental management that it will have to meet the prior costs of the Special Administration, even if it is possible to recover the amounts later. General Times data appears to be designed to throw a little light.

The appearance of montage may be the last opportunity for the chosen committee to achieve some basic transparency. Mysterious answers are not accepted.