The barbarians are at the gates of the sewage works

You don’t have to be overly cynical to think the clincher for KKR was nothing more than the presumption that it was proposing smaller haircuts for Thames’s class A senior bondholders. Photograph: Andrew Matthews/PA

The answer to too much private equity ownership at Thames Water, it turns out, is more private equity ownership.

Say hello to KKR, the preferred bidder for the UK’s biggest water company. If you remember them as the original “barbarians at the gate”, the US private equity firm would probably point out that the reference to a leveraged buyout of a US biscuit company is more than 35 years old. These days, the relevant unit of KKR would like to be known as an infrastructure investor, which has a cuddlier ring.