A Run on Southern Water?

England's privatised water companies were involved in circa 5,500 pollution events, discharging raw sewage into rivers and coastal waters. Water companies are not flavour of the month. The water regulator, Ofwat, is especially concerned about 3 English water companies. These are Southern, Yorkshire and SES. All, were judged as having inadequate levels of financial resilience and poor customer service. Southern have now received an equity injection from the Australian Investment Bank, Macquarie (https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/jan/30/misunderstood-macquarie-takes-another-go-in-uk-water-industry-southern). Between 2006 and 2016, Macquarie owned Thames Water. At the time, Macquarie were castigated for extracting billions in shareholder dividends as well as running down London's water company. Now, 5 years after selling out of Thames, the regulator have given Macquarie its blessing to return to run Southern. Why?