Thames Water’s creditors have revealed plans to appoint four new directors to the board of the stricken supplier if their rescue bid is given the green light to avoid it being nationalised.
Former Yorkshire Water chief executive Liz Barber is among the first tranche of proposed non-executive directors unveiled by the London & Valley Water consortium as it looks to secure Government backing for the deal.
Dame Bernadette Kelly, the former permanent secretary at the Department for Transport, would also join the board, alongside Clive Selley, ex-chief executive of BT Openreach.
Infrastructure expert Mike McTighe has already been proposed as a board member of Thames Water should the bid be accepted.
Details of the proposed board members are seen as an effort to reassure the Government over governance and leadership of Britain’s biggest water supplier should the rescue bid be approved, amid growing calls for it to be nationalised.
The consortium – including UK and US investment companies such as Elliott Management, Aberdeen Investments and American private capital firm Apollo Global Management – last month said they were looking at offering a “golden share” to the Government as part of a revised rescue deal.
Prime Minister Andy Burnham has already signalled he wants to bring in a 10-year plan to renationalise the water industry, saying reform is needed to put the public interest first.
But the Government has said in the past it would prefer a “market solution” for Thames Water, which has around 16 million customers across London and the South East.
A rescue plan by creditors is seen as the final realistic option to avoid Thames Water being placed into a special administration regime after a previous rescue deal with US private equity giant KKR collapsed in May last year.
Creditors – who collectively own about £17 billion of Thames Water’s debt mountain of over £20 billion – have already been sent back to the drawing board after former environment secretary Emma Reynolds warned in June she did not believe their £10 billion plan for Thames Water went far enough to protect customers or the environment.
The London & Valley Water consortium is said to be hoping to secure agreement for its deal from regulator Ofwat and the Government this autumn, having recently warned it is set to run out of cash as soon as October.
Mr McTighe said: “If this recapitalisation plan is accepted, we will apply full dedication as a new board, working alongside the executive team to transform the business and build a in which the customers and local communities who depend on Thames Water come first.
“We will focus relentlessly on protecting public health and safety, respecting and improving the local environment, ensuring what people pay for their water is fair and the most vulnerable are protected, investing to secure clean and reliable water supplies for current and future generations, and being accountable for what we do.
“It will take time to fix Thames Water, but we are committed to rebuilding trust with the customers and public Thames Water serves.”
Former farming minister Dame Angela Eagle was last month appointed as the new Environment Secretary by Mr Burnham.
It is understood she has not yet met with the creditors consortium regarding the rescue deal.