Thames Water has six weeks to complete a s survival plan

The fate of Thames Water hangs in the balance, with the company on the brink of bankruptcy, it seems. It also looks likely to be the case that any restructuring of the company is not going to be approved by the sector's regulator, OFWAT, who aren't willing to see consumer bear the costs of this, even though they seems to concede that it is inevitable that bills are going to rise in future.

Is this indicative of a failure of privatisation, a failure of regulation, or a failure of corporate governance. Or the failure of all three?

Please read: Thames Water is everyone’s problem and time is running out to fix it

Nils Pratley with an interesting take here on the future for Thames Water - which he anticipates collapsing at some point into the future. He argues that there's a case for restructuring the business, and that splitting into London and Greater Thames businesses makes sense.

He's also true in that bills are going to have to rise, but not by so much that investors get off risk-free: between them Thames's management, regulators, shareholders and the government are far more culpable for its demise than its innocent customers.