KKR Quit Thames Bid After It Saw Little Upside to a Rescue
Engineers' vans parked at the Thames Water South Woodford pumping station in London.
Photographer: Chris Ratcliffe/BloombergTakeaways
KKR & Co. withdrew its bid to invest £4 billion ($5.4 billion) in Thames Water when the US infrastructure giant realized there was little upside to a deal, according to people familiar with the deliberations.
KKR quit its offer Tuesday as the crisis engulfing the UK utility made a profitable overhaul extremely challenging, the people said, asking not to be identified discussing confidential information. Expectations for improving the asset base in a way that protected the business, and for raising the performance of the company, were realistically hard to meet, they said.