Thames Water creditors pick former minister Hutton to chair rescue board

Creditors seeking to take control of Thames Water have selected former Labour minister Lord John Hutton to chair the company if their rescue bid succeeds. London & Valley Water, the creditor consortium behind a £10bn rescue deal, announced on 20 October that Hutton would join the board as independent chair designate, according to GlobeNewswire.

Hutton served as work and pensions secretary, business secretary and defence secretary in the governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. He has since chaired the Nuclear Industry Association, Energy UK and Make UK, The Guardian reported.

Mike McTighe was named vice-chair designate under the creditors' plan. McTighe had been lined up in August to replace Sir Adrian Montague as Thames Water chair if the takeover was approved.

Thames Water is Britain's largest water supplier, with 16 million customers in the south of England. The company recently asked its creditors for an additional £2.4bn.

The leadership announcement follows a recapitalisation deal reported on 16 October between Thames Water and key Class B creditors, one group of its lenders. Under that proposal, about £1 billion ($1.33 billion) of Class B debt would be written off, leaving those creditors with a recovery of about 5.9%, according to Reuters.

Thames Water Utilities Limited has said it entered into a transaction support agreement with certain Class A creditors and certain Class B creditors, including an ad hoc group. It has also said its 14th and 15th sets of consent requests from creditors were approved, according to Thames Water. The company later launched parallel 16th consent requests and related proposals with its super senior issuer.