Why the UK is carp at trade deals.

[bobspud]

I disagree with you regarding a trade deal. The right for a foreign owner to purchase a utility company is generally restricted in most countries. The UK had opened the sale of the family silver to all and sundry in order to get access to markets.

Which markets are you referring to? It wasn't an EU stipulation and we still don't have a US deal so who told use we had to do it?

Im afraid the truth is worse. We opened the family silver for an idealism that liberalisation and globalisation is a good idea...

[Paddy]

Thats nothing to do with UK or trade deals. The Thames Water mess is standard MBA having cynical playbook act of bulltulip that states that the only way to buy a company is to take a loan, buy the company and then saddle the victim with your debt.

The other one is buy company take massive loan declare dividend and flee.

Both should be prosecuted under the companies act because it is blatantly failing to run the company to it's own best interest...

I disagree with you regarding a trade deal. The right for a foreign owner to purchase a utility company is generally restricted in most countries. The UK had opened the sale of the family silver to all and sundry in order to get access to markets.

[bobspud]

Yes, standard operating procedure. It's one of the reasons Arsene Wenger doesn't get sacked - Arsenal are one of the few top teams not up to their eyeballs in debt.

Just checked... Man Utd £261million debt
Second only to Chelsea, who owe Mr Abramovich... wait for it ... £1.4billion

And don't forget Arsenal managed this while building a new stadium and staying in European football for nearly the whole time.

Robert Peston wrote a book that came out shortly after the crash. It examined BHS as it was then and the culture of the banks. I read it and thought how the hell did anyone think this was a clever idea...

[WTFH]

Didn't the Glazers do this when they bought Man Utd?

Yes, standard operating procedure. It's one of the reasons Arsene Wenger doesn't get sacked - Arsenal are one of the few top teams not up to their eyeballs in debt.

Just checked... Man Utd £261million debt
Second only to Chelsea, who owe Mr Abramovich... wait for it ... £1.4billion

[bobspud]

Didn't the Glazers do this when they bought Man Utd?

Yep. As have nearly every single merger case in the last two decades The fun part is that the victims's debt repayments tend to wipe out their corporation taxes as they only service the debt rather than pay it...

[SueEllen]

Didn't the Glazers do this when they bought Man Utd?

It's very common so extremely likely.

Just don't get caught doing dodgy business unlike Dominic Chappell.

[SimonMac]

Didn't the Glazers do this when they bought Man Utd?

[NotAllThere]

Thats nothing to do with UK or trade deals. The Thames Water mess is standard MBA having cynical playbook act of bulltulip that states that the only way to buy a company is to take a loan, buy the company and then saddle the victim with your debt.

That's the plot of Making Money (Pratchett).

[bobspud]

Thats nothing to do with UK or trade deals. The Thames Water mess is standard MBA having cynical playbook act of bulltulip that states that the only way to buy a company is to take a loan, buy the company and then saddle the victim with your debt.

The other one is buy company take massive loan declare dividend and flee.

Both should be prosecuted under the companies act because it is blatantly failing to run the company to it's own best interest...

[Paddy]

And why water bills are so expensive. There was nothing compelling to allow an Australian Mafia Bank to take over Thames Water but the UK’s love for global trade led to the UK being scammed.

More at How Macquarie bank left Thames Water with extra £2bn debt - BBC News

The Australian bank Macquarie has left Thames Water with an extra £2bn debt burden, a BBC investigation shows.
The £2bn was borrowed by Thames Water in 2007 and 2010 but used for the benefit of the bank and its investors, which owned and controlled the UK's biggest privatised water company. This was in apparent contravention of conditions laid down by the regulator when Macquarie bought Thames in 2006.

The transactions which culminated in Thames Water having the additional £2bn of debt on its books took place inside a network of companies set up by Macquarie at the time it bought Thames Water.
A consultation paper published in February 2007 by the water regulator Ofwat showed that Macquarie and its investors paid £5.1bn for Thames Water, of which £2.8bn was money Macquarie had borrowed to help fund the purchase.

What subsequently happened to that £2.8bn so-called "acquisition debt" is revealed in a letter, dated October last year, from Thames Water's then-chairman, Sir Peter Mason, to Martin Blaiklock. ,
It was written in reply to questions arising from Mr Blaiklock's attempts to understand Thames Water's offshore financial structure.

In this letter, Sir Peter reveals that, of the £2.8bn acquisition debt, no less than £2bn had subsequently been repaid. Not by Macquarie and its investors, who had originally borrowed the money, but from new borrowings raised by Thames Water through a Cayman Islands subsidiary.

Martin Blaiklock said: "That letter was a red flag to me because it showed clearly that the debt which Macquarie funds had used to buy Thames Water had been transferred over to Thames Water."