Financialising household water: Thames Water, MEIF, and ‘ring-fenced’ politics

John Allen and Michael Pryke

Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, 2013, vol. 6, issue 3, 419-439

Abstract: Since the privatisation of water in England and Wales in 1989, a shift in the pattern of ownership towards more consortia-led, global infrastructure funds has witnessed the emergence of a skewed distribution model of financialised infrastructure in the household water sector. A model of debt refinancing based largely upon the securitization of household revenue streams, we argue, has engineered benefits more towards investors than customers. Through the example of Thames Water and its purchase in 2006 by an international consortium of investors led by the Australian bank, the Macquarie Group, this article sets out a model of leveraged debt made possible though the predictable nature of revenue streams captured from households who have no choice over their water supplier or the amount that they have to pay. Copyright 2013, Oxford University Press.

Date: 2013
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (37)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/cjres/rst010 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:cjrecs:v:6:y:2013:i:3:p:419-439

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society is currently edited by Judith Clifton, Anna Davies, Betsy Donald, Emil Evenhuis, Stefania Fiorentino (Associate Editor), Harry Garretsen, Meric Gertler, Amy Glasmeier, Mia Gray, Robert Hassink, Dieter Kogler, Michael Kitson, Linda Lobao, Charles van Marrewijk, Ron Martin, Peter Sunley, Peter Tyler and Chun Yang

More articles in Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society from Cambridge Political Economy Society Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().