English water companies have handed more than £2bn a year on average to shareholders since they were privatised three decades ago, according to analysis for the Guardian.
The payouts in dividends to shareholders of parent companies between 1991 and 2019 amount to £57bn – nearly half the sum they spent on maintaining and improving the country’s pipes and treatment plants in that period.
When Margaret Thatcher sold off the water industry in 1989, the government wrote off all debts. But according to the analysis by David Hall and Karol Yearwood of the public services international research unit of Greenwich University, the nine privatised companies in England have amassed debts of £48bn over the past three decades – almost as much as the sum paid out to shareholders. The debt cost them £1.3bn in interest last year.
Rihanna Demands Justice In Breonna Taylor Case, Calls Out Kentucky’s Attorney General
Hall concludes the companies have borrowed to pay dividends, rather than to invest in infrastructure projects. The £123bn of capital expenditure spent by the companies has all been financed by customer bills, the analysis states.
“A large amount of debt has been borrowed. But since the revenue from user charges covered capital expenditure, this debt has been used to finance dividends rather than capital expenditure,” Hall said.
In the past 10 years, the companies have paid out £17bn in dividends and directors’ pay has soared. The earnings of the nine water companies’ highest-paid directors rose by 8.8% last year, to a total of £12.9m. The highest paid CEOs were at Severn Trent, with a salary package of £2.4m, and United Utilities, a salary package of £2.3m.
In comparison, the highest paid director of publicly owned Scottish Water earned £366,000.
Ellen Lees of the campaign group We Own It said: “Rather than paying out billions to shareholders, the water companies could have been investing in the infrastructure the system needs,” she said.
“It’s time to put an end to this farce that is ripping off the public and ruining our environment. It’s time to bring our water into public ownership.”
Source: England’s privatised water firms paid £57bn in dividends since 1991
Recent Comments