Thames Water has said it has enough cash to keep it going until May 2025, as potential investors await the outcome of negotiation with the UK regulator. The company, which provides water to London and the Thames Valley in the south-east of England, is in a parlous financial state. Keir Starmer, the new prime minister, and Rachel Reeves, the new chancellor, have been briefed that the company presents a “critical risk” to the country. Thames Water Utilities Ltd, the regulated subsidiary, on Tuesday said it had £1.8bn in cash and other liquid assets “sufficient to fund our operations for the next 11 months to the end of May 2025”: "Following the draft determination and our response to Ofwat we will be engaging with potential investors and creditors to seek new equity and to extend our liquidity runway. Any equity process is not expected to conclude until after the final determination." The company reported a 10% increase in revenues to £2.4bn in the year to 31 March as it raised bills in line with inflation, and scraped to a profit of £75m. It also said that it spent a record £2.1bn as it maintained and upgraded its ageing pipe network. Chris Weston, the chief executive of Thames Water since December, said he believed the business could be turned around. He said: "The challenges we face are well documented, but our operational and financial performance for the last year show good progress, and these positive results provide the right foundations on which to build and improve." Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 index closed at a new record high on Tuesday, the latest in a series of records amid a global surge in investor interest in artificial intelligence companies. Computer chip semiconductor companies – who have been some of the biggest beneficiaries of the rally – helped the index to a 2% gain on Tuesday, outpacing other Asian stock indices. The index closed at a record high of 41,580.17 on Tuesday, after rising as high as 41,769.35 during afternoon trading. The Nikkei had taken decades to surpass its previous peak, hit during the 1989 bubble. On the final trading day of 1989, it had closed at 38,915.87; that level was reached again in February, 34 years later. We’ll be tracking all the main events throughout the day ...
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