Latest privatisation success – Australia, Qatar and China to profit from billing UK energy customers
![An engineer walks along stretch of National Grid gas pipeline near Skipton in North Yorkshire [Image: Nigel Roddis/Reuters].](https://voxpoliticalonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/161208-National-Grid-gas-pipe.png)
An engineer walks along stretch of National Grid gas pipeline near Skipton in North Yorkshire [Image: Nigel Roddis/Reuters].
Undoubtedly, shareholders in the UK’s National Grid will be delighted to pocket the £4 billion they are making from the sale of the gas pipe network to Australia, Qatar and China.
How happy will their customers feel?
The sale means that what was once a public asset is now in the hands of two foreign states and one foreign multinational investment bank.
They won’t be interested in investing in the network.
They won’t want to cut bills.
They’ll want to maximise profits.
This is further proof that Conservative privatisation policies are impoverishing the UK by selling off everything we own to foreigners.
It seems strange that being ripped off by rich foreigners is seen as entirely acceptable, while the possibility of poor foreigners coming here to look for work has been painted as an insult to our national pride.
What will Mr Farage, who has been known to advocate NHS privatisation, have to say about it?
National Grid has agreed to sell a majority stake in its gas pipe network to a team of investors in a deal valuing the division at about £13.8bn.
The UK’s power network operator said it would sell a 61% shareholding in the gas pipe arm to a consortium led by Australian investment bank Macquarie, including backing from Qatari and Chinese state investors.
National Grid will return £4bn to shareholders after the deal, and it will make a voluntary payment of £150m to the benefit of British energy consumers.
The auction for the gas network has been running for at least a year, and the Macquarie consortium fought off a raft of competitors including a team led by Chinese investors.
Source: National Grid sells majority stake in gas division in £13.8bn deal | Business | The Guardian
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Depressing
Why ask Farage he didn’t sell off the assets perhaps it would be better to ask the parties responsible for all the outsourcing and privatisations inclusive of the NHS Conservatives Labour and lib Dems. After all you have to be in power to enact theses sales. You might of course ask Richard Branson about all the previously publicly owned assets he is making a fortune out of and not contributing to the economy with a proportion of his profits.
while they hold their hands out for those backhanders and jobs for the boys lovely jubbly if you one of them
Macquarie Group are clients of the odious Tory spinmeister Lynton Crosby. Small world, ain’t it?
Macquarie Group through its subsidiary Macquarie Equipment Rentals has allegedly been perpetrating a Telco finance scam. Macquarie Equipment Rentals has sued over 300 victims of the scam which involves bundling a finance equipment contract with a contract from a small telecommunications company, often obscuring that the finance contract exists.
The scam involves the telecommunications company promising free equipment such as Plasma TVs, while offering a lower cost phone deal that offsets the cost of the equipment. The victim is then tricked into signing two contracts with the true costs often hidden, whilst being verbally promised that they will be free. The telecommunications company is paid an upfront fee by the finance company, and sometime later disappears. The victim is then left with an inflated finance company lease that requires the victim to pay often tens of thousands of dollars for equipment that in reality costs a fraction of the price.
The company’s high margins and profits, and the rewards for its executives and shareholders, saw the Australian media label the bank “The Millionaire Factory” up until its share price fell almost 85% in early 2009.
WIKIPEDIA
Talk about Black Friday. Here we have Red, White and Blue sell offs!
And the tories fill there pockets yet again