Liquidated Assets

One of Britain's more interestingly managed moisture provision companies was fined the value of fifteen or twenty executive bonuses last year, having been ranked seventeenth out of seventeen for customer service and missed so many regulatory targets that even the industry watchdog thought it best to leave off humping the corporate ankle. Despite the management having driven the company so far into debt that the fines won't do much harm, Thames Water has been put into special measures; while all its best intentions have been thwarted by an impressively lengthy list of excuses. Notable among these are cuts to the advertising budget, since everyone knows how much healthier raw sewage is to ingest when it has been properly marketed; and pollution fines, which have caused customer perceptions to deteriorate by calling unwarranted attention to pollution just because it happened to be going on. A woke green agenda was also in there somewhere, leading to the installation of only 204,700 fewer than the 204,700 smart water meters which Thames was meant to install; although in that case the company was magnanimous enough to acknowledge the disappointment caused among those who don't know any better. In keeping with the private sector's habitual efficiency, Thames is now seeking to resolve its debts by increasing its debts, while the regulator has blithely proclaimed that moisture provision users will just have to pay a bit more.