Southern Water Lenders Tap Advisers to Help Stabilize Utility

(Bloomberg) -- A group of lenders to Southern Water Ltd. has brought advisers on board to help them assess options to stabilize the situation at the UK utility, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

Lenders for the company’s £350 million ($446 million) revolving credit facility, including NatWest Group Plc, Lloyds Bank Plc and BNP Paribas SA, picked Perella Weinberg Partners and Clifford Chance as financial and legal advisers, respectively, as the situation worsens for the water company, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private information. 

Representations for BNP, Clifford Chance and Southern Water declined to comment. Representatives for NatWest, Lloyds and PWP didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. 

The UK’s water utilities are grappling with a combination of high interest rates, regulatory uncertainty and public outrage over chronic leaks and sewage spills. Thames Water, the country’s largest water supplier, recently won creditor support to move forward with a plan to raise £3 billion in emergency funding to buy the company time to avoid an immediate cash crunch. 

Earlier this month, Southern Water’s rating was downgraded to junk status by Moody’s Ratings, while Fitch Ratings Inc. lowered it to one step above junk. 

In its downgrade note, Fitch said Southern Water’s long-dated derivatives portfolio, which created £1.6 billion of super-senior liabilities on the utility as of March, was an increasing drag on its creditworthiness. The utility said it maintained a strong liquidity position in response to the downgrade. 

One notable difference between Thames Water and Southern Water is that the latter’s shareholder, Macquarie Group, has expressed a willingness to back the company. Macquarie used to be a shareholder of Thames and has been criticized for loading the company with debt and use it to pay itself dividends.

Earlier this week, the chief executive of the UK water regulator Ofwat, David Black, said Macquarie won’t be able to repeat the same practice of paying hefty dividends from Southern Water in the same way that it did while it ran Thames Water.

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