By Ben Glaze From Daily Mirror

Foreign hedge funds, overseas governments and offshore business are the main ones to benefit from water industry profits

Greedy foreign hedge funds, overseas governments and offshore businesses are soaking up profits from hard-up water customers, a study reveals today.

More than 70% of the water industry is currently owned from abroad, according to research by the GMB Union.

Dividends worth £6.5billion were paid to shareholders in the past five years, with £1.4billion in 2017 alone, its investigation discovered.

The figures fuelled calls for the industry to be re-nationalised – a key pledge by Labour.

Nearly 6,000 people have signed a GMB “Take Back the Tap” petition , demanding a return to public ownerhsip.

The union urged leading Tory Brexiteer Michael Gove, the Environment Secretary who spearheaded the 216 EU Leave campaign, to follow his own advice and “take back control”.

GMB general secretary Tim Roache said: “It’s a scandal that the supply of water that falls from England’s skies is in fact now overwhelmingly owned by overseas profiteers.

“If Michael Gove is serious about ‘taking back control’ he will end the water privatisation rip-off racket and put water back in public hands.”

Details uncovered by the union reveal the shocking scale of how foreign investors snapped up ownership of one of the country’s major utilities.

Malaysian firm YTL Corporation Berhad owns all of Wessex Water.

Cheung Kong Group – a multinational registered in the Cayman Islands run by the family of Hong Kong’s richest person – owns 80% of Northumbrian Water.

US hedge funds Blackrock, Lazard and Vanguard each own a stake in Severn Trent, United Utilities and South West Water, the union says.

Germany’s Deutsche Asset Management and US private equity company Corsair Capital own half of Yorkshire Water.

Two fifths of Southern Water is owned by US investment company JP Morgan Asset Management.

A third of Thames Water is owned by investment fund companies from the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, China and Australia.

Australia’s Colonial First State Global Asset Management owns stakes in Anglian Water, Severn Trent, United Utilities and South West Water.

Meanwhile, chief executives of England’s nine privatised water company trousered am eye-watering £58million in pay, bonuses, pensions and other benefits over the past five years, researchers claim.

At the same time, bills for struggling families have rocketed by 40% above inflation since privatisation in 1989, according to a report by the National Audit Office.

And 2.4 billion litres of water is wasted through leaks every single day in England.

Mr Roache added: “Every time we turn on the tap big businesses around the globe are making money at our expense.

“The spivs and speculators must be laughing at us as they make billions in profits while our water bills go up and leakages go unfixed.

“This is yet another damning example of a failed privatisation experiment.”

IMAGES:

Environment Secretary Michael Gove is in charge of water (Image: Getty Images)

JOHN MCDONNELL REVEALS PLAN TO NATIONALISE WATER SUPPLY

JEREMY CORBYN BACKS NATIONALISING BRITAIN’S WATER SUPPLY

For more on this story and video go to: https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/your-water-rates-funding-dividends-13329290