Thames Water - comment

We are inclined to dismiss the Castle Water offer, despite the large headline tag of £4bn. We don’t have any details beyond what is in the press, but assume there must be a hook that will leave creditors cold, as we don’t see how one would speculate with cash that would be junior to creditors on the current basis of information - i.e. before Ofwat propose an AMP8 plan and before that can be assumed to be generous enough to put that kind of bid in the money.