Thames Water – up against the wall
This may be stale news for those who manage British Telecom’s massive pension scheme but it won’t help the pensioners and deferred pensioners who may see something faulty in its investment strategy. A lot of money was lost by BT’s pension scheme at the end of 2022 (LDI) and this write off came only two years later.
BT’s pension fund lost £300mn on Thames Water https://t.co/GROEvyTW4b via @ft
— Josephine Cumbo (@JosephineCumbo) June 24, 2026
Thames Water is an example of how not to manage a private company in the UK. A utility which we were most proud of has been turned into a basket case, its value sucked out of it by investment bankers who came and left with what we valued in a bag that might have been called “swag”.
The size of the loss — which occurred following a decision to write off its 8.7 per cent stake in the UK’s largest water company in 2024 — was confirmed to analysts in a meeting on Monday, according to a video released by BT. The company said in the same meeting that the pension scheme had sold some of its debt in Thames Water, but did not give specifics.
At a time when most Defined Benefit Pensions are showing surpluses, BT is still in deficit
BT said during its annual results in May that its pension deficit stood at £4.2bn, up from £4.1bn a year prior, partly due to returns being lower than expected. The company put about £800mn into the pension fund in deficit payments in the last financial year.
Sadly this does not refer to BT whose pension fund is managed by Brightwell
The situation at BT’s pension management company (Brightwell) is almost as bad as Thames Water’s.
The £33.2bn BT pension scheme, which was closed to new members in 2001 and to future accrual in 2018, pays out about £2.9bn in benefits each year. BTPS is currently managed by Brightwell Pensions and is one of the UK’s largest private-sector single-employer pension schemes.
That’s not good but what’s even worse is that the write off , of the equity by BT and USS pension scheme together with other schemes from Canada is to hand control of Thames Water to American hedge funds and private equity firms,
This really is a sorry tale for BT , USS and for Thames Water. It has come to the notice of our Government who are considering nationalisation.
Consumers have every reason to feel livid, they feel the impact of this incompetence in their water bills and in the filthy state of its rivers. BT pension members have reason to feel deprived from the upturn in pension company’s fortunes since the crisis of October 2022. Shareholders and employees feel the impact of deficit payments in the returns they get from owning and working for BT.