(Bloomberg) -- Britain’s environment secretary rejected a direct appeal for help from the owners of Thames Water, underscoring the government’s efforts to stay out of the financial crisis rocking the UK’s largest water company. 

Investors in Kemble Water Holdings Ltd., the troubled parent company of Thames Water, asked Environment Secretary Steve Barclay to intervene in recent weeks, according to people familiar with the matter. The request came after they learned that industry watchdog Ofwat didn’t support Thames’s next five-year plan, which would see bills rise 40% to cover the cost of infrastructure improvements and rising debt obligations, said the people, who asked not be named discussing an exchange that hasn’t been made public. 

Barclay wrote back, refusing to intervene in the process, known as Price Review 24, the people said. Shortly thereafter, the shareholders announced that Thames’s business plan was “uninvestible” and they wouldn’t inject any more capital into the business.

Spokespeople for the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and Kemble declined to comment. 

Barclay’s response is consistent with efforts by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s government to resist pressure to bring the company, which supplies one-quarter of England including London with water, into special administration. Ministers want Thames to resolve its problems through negotiations with shareholders and water regulator Ofwat.

The regulator is due in June to announce its draft decision on Thames’s business plan — alongside all the other water companies’ business proposals — with a final decision due in December.

Thames has £16 billion ($20 billion) of debt and needs more than £2.5 billion in equity to deliver on its plans out to the end of the decade. It says it has enough cash to survive until the end of July 2025. That time line raises the prospect that Sunak’s administration is kicking the can down the road and hoping a full-blown crisis doesn’t materialize before a general election due by January.

The stakes rose on Friday when Kemble’s financing arm, Kemble Water Finance Ltd., announced that it defaulted on its debt. Creditors of Thames Water Utilities have started to organize ahead of potential restructuring talks. 

As well as seeking to hike bills, Thames has asked Ofwat for leeway on rules around the weighted cost of capital, dividend payouts and the allowed return on equity for investors. However, in private conversations with the company, Ofwat said it couldn’t give any flexibility to Thames because of its past and current poor financial and environmental performance.

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