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Thames Water has returned to a full-year profit after hiking its customers’ bills by 40% last year.<\/b><\/p>\n
The UK’s largest water company reported post-tax income of \u00a3113m for the 12 months to the end of March, swinging from a \u00a31.51bn post-tax loss the previous year.<\/p>\n
However, the firm’s net debt also swelled to \u00a318.5bn from \u00a316.8bn as it said it only had enough debt funding to keep the business going until the end of 2026.<\/p>\n
The publication of Thames Water’s results comes after the government rejected a proposed rescue deal for the business in June<\/a>, pushing the firm one step closer to nationalisation.<\/p>\n Under the terms of the deal, Thames’ lenders wanted leniency from future pollution fines in return for writing off \u00a39.4bn of its debt pile and investing new money.<\/p>\n Thames Water said on Wednesday pollution incidents had fallen by 18%. It hit just over half of its performance targets.<\/p>\n The firm said it was below target when it came to customer complaints, which jumped by 77% to 122,798 in a year. <\/p>\n Bill complaints made up over three quarters of the total and doubled compared to the previous year.<\/p>\n The results also reveal how money from its customer bills is not enough to fund the massive upgrades needed to improve its aging and historically underinvested infrastructure, which means it needs to borrow more money.<\/p>\n The firm said debt had risen as it “continued to fund the business through… debt and internally generated cash flows”.<\/p>\n He told Reuters on Wednesday that its lenders “want to see what the new Burnham government thinks before providing more funding”.<\/p>\n