Thames Water - History

History

Thames Water can trace its history back to numerous earlier companies and individuals stretching back to the early 17th century:

1600s, 1610s Edmund Colthurst, Hugh Myddelton and later Sir John Backhouse were the driving forces behind the New River Company and the New River, which provided an additional source of drinking water to London.
1850s Joseph Bazalgette's remediation of The Great Stink provided the company with much of London's present Victorian sewerage infrastructure and several listed buildings within its portfolio of sites. Also in the 1850s, Dr John Snow's identification of the 1854 Broad Street cholera outbreak provided a stimulus to the better treatment of sewage.
1973 The Thames Water Authority was founded, under the terms of the Water Act 1973, and took over the following water supply utilities and catchment area management bodies:
  • Cotswold Water Board
  • Croydon Corporation
  • Epsom and Ewell Corporation
  • The Lee Conservancy
  • Metropolitan Water Board, responsible for water supply in London.
  • Mid Southern Water Company
  • Middle Thames Water Board
  • Oxfordshire and District Water Board
  • South West Suburban Water Company
  • Swindon Corporation
  • Thames Conservancy, responsible for managing the non-tidal River Thames (powers taken until 1989).
  • Thames Valley Water Board
  • Watford Corporation
  • West Surrey Water Board
1989 Thames Water was privatised as Thames Water Utilities Limited, entailing the transfer of navigation, regulatory, river and channels management to the National Rivers Authority that later became part of the Environment Agency. The company became listed on the London Stock Exchange and was a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.
2001 Thames Water plc was acquired by the German utility company RWE. As well as its British operations, it became an international water treatment consultancy and acquired some overseas operations.
2006 On 17 October 2006, following several years of criticism about failed leakage targets in the UK, RWE announced that it would sell Thames Water to Kemble Water Limited for £4.8 billion (since Thames Water had net debts of £3.2 billion, this implied an enterprise value of £8.0 billion). In December 2006, the sale of the British operation from RWE to Kemble went ahead, with RWE keeping the overseas operations. Kemble is a consortium led by an investment fund run by the Australian Macquarie Bank. Australian investment funds already have interests in South East Water and Mid Kent Water.
2007 Under the new ownership, the company re-focused its efforts on improving its operational performance and announced the largest-ever capital investment (£1 billion) of any UK water company.
2012 Some of the company's stock was acquired by the China Investment Corporation, the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and the BT Pension Scheme
Thames Water was a Tier Three Sponsor for the London 2012 Olympic Games

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