And of course it’s all legal, and sounds terribly familiar – think BHS. When the Daily Mail write like this it’s not good for reputations.

By City & Finance Reporter for the Daily Mail ‘Australian bank Macquarie is gearing up to sell its share of Thames Water after squeezing hundreds of millions of pounds out of the company. The sale of the 26 per cent stake in Britain’s biggest water supplier is expected to raise between £1billion and £1.5billion, with indicative bids due in July. This process is being handled by investment bank Nomura, according to the Financial Times, and will formally kick off today. Macquarie – known as the Vampire Kangaroo for its ruthless focus on profits – and fellow investors have extracted around £1.2billion of profits from Thames since taking control a decade ago. And the bank has aggressively focused on limiting its tax payments, with Thames paying just £100,000 in corporation tax since 2006.  This is partly due to high debt levels and partly because of tax-deductible investments to replace pipes. It loaded the water supplier with loans, increasing the amount of debt for investments on its balance sheet from £1.6billion ten years ago to around £10 billion.  Its pension deficit has ballooned from £38m to £250m.’ To read more click here.