Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on August 15, 2025
1 min readLast updated: January 22, 2026
Add as preferred source on GoogleBarclays is selling £236M of Thames Water debt as the utility faces financial struggles. The UK government is preparing contingency plans for potential administration.
(Reuters) -British lender Barclays is selling Thames Water debt worth 236 million pounds ($319.9 million), Bloomberg News reported on Friday, as the struggling water utility risks being placed into special administration if it were to collapse.
The inflation-linked liabilities were offered in an auction where bid was due on Thursday, the report said, citing people familiar with the matter.
Thames declined to comment on the report while Barclays did not immediately respond to Reuters' request for comment.
The UK government earlier this week appointed FTI Consulting to advise on contingency plans for Thames Water to be placed into a special administration regime were the country's largest water utility to collapse, according to a government source.
The embattled firm said earlier in the day it had drawn the remaining available amount of its first 1.5 billion-pound tranche of debt lifeline, securing liquidity needs until at least mid-December.
($1 = 0.7378 pounds)
(Reporting by Prerna Bedi and DhanushVignesh Babu in Bengaluru)
An auction is a public sale in which goods or property are sold to the highest bidder. Bidders compete against each other to purchase the item.
Inflation-linked liabilities are financial obligations that are adjusted based on inflation rates, ensuring that the value of the debt remains constant in real terms.
Special administration is a legal framework in the UK designed to protect companies that are financially distressed, allowing them to continue operations while a plan is developed to address their financial issues.
Liquidity refers to the ease with which an asset can be converted into cash without significantly affecting its market price. High liquidity means assets can be quickly sold.
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