U.S. fund KKR makes £four billion management-buyout bid for Thames Water

Thames Water utility van in the Cty of London on 3rd December 2024 in London, United Kingdom. Thames Water Utilities Ltd is a large private utility company responsible for the water supply and waste water treatment in most of Greater London and surrounding areas in England. (photo by Mike Kemp/In Pictures via Getty Images)

Mike Kemp | In Pictures | Getty Images

Private equity investor KKR & Co. is offering about £4 billion ($5 billion) to take control of the U.K.’s struggling Thames Water utility in a management-led buyout, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Thames, Britain’s largest water utility serving some 16 million customers in London and the Thames River valley, is saddled with ballooning debt and has warned it will run out of cash by March 24. Privatized by the Thatcher government in 1989, Thames last summer began the process of raising additional capital, culminating in an announcement last week that it had received buyout proposals from a “number of parties.” Thames said it was studying each bid.

Thames Water needs to restructure its debt and capital structure as part of a broad turnaround, and would benefit from a single active owner, a source familiar with the matter told CNBC. Thames owed about £16 billion in debt as of last September.

KKR’s involvement would comprise a £4 billion management-buyout submission that would not result in the sale of assets or a breakup of the utility, the source said.

Thames Water and KKR declined comment.

Bloomberg reported earlier Wednesday that KKR was offering to inject nearly £4 billion into Thames Water for a majority stake.

KKR is a longtime investor in the U.K., having funneled more than £20 billion into the country since 1996. The private equity firm launched a platform for infrastructure investments in 2008, seeking investments with a long-term investment horizon.

The U.K.’s high court on Tuesday approved £3 billion in emergency funding for Thames Water from existing shareholders, allowing the utility breathing room to restructure its debts and secure new investors.

Thames Water is part of a group of companies known as the Kemble Water Group that are owned by a consortium of institutional shareholders – mostly pension funds and sovereign wealth funds. The biggest shareholder is the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System, one of Canada’s largest pensions.

The crisis-plagued utility has faced criticism for a sharp increase in sewage discharge into Britain’s waterways, including the 215 mile-long Thames, which flows through the nation’s capital.

– CNBC’s Jenni Reid and Sawdah Bhaimiya contributed to this report.

A Dozen Home Republicans Are Opposing Medicaid Cuts

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In an interesting turn of events, the House Republican budget resolution is in trouble because of Medicaid, and not for the reason you might think. The issue is that a dozen House Republicans don’t want to go along with the deep cuts to the program in Speaker Johnson’s budget.

Politico reported:

Speaker Mike Johnson is staring down at least a dozen Republican holdouts on the budget blueprint he wants to put on the House floor in the coming days — and he can only afford to lose one member and still approve the resolution along party lines.

Johnson and his whip team are using the current week-long recess to ramp up engagement with undecided Republicans, including seven members — if not more — who have raised serious concerns about deep cuts to Medicaid in the House GOP budget resolution.

….

The vulnerable incumbents wary of slashing Medicaid services include Reps. David Valadao of California, Nicole Malliotakis of New York, Don Bacon of Nebraska, Rob Bresnahan of Pennsylvania and others from redder districts. They were generally blindsided by the deeper level of proposed cuts, a Republican said, as that possibility never came up in earlier discussions with GOP leaders.

The problem for Republicans is that without steep cuts to Medicaid, they can’t find the money to pay for Trump’s tax cuts for the rich.

House Republicans know that voting for Medicaid cuts in swing districts would equal kissing their seats goodbye in 2026.

This is where the House Democratic refusal to help Republicans with anything that would assist Trump in cutting taxes for the rich comes in handy.

Republicans have to pass their budget resolution on their own because Democrats have refused to help them.

Vulnerable House Republicans aren’t going to give up their seats to appease a lame-duck one-term president.

Mike Johnson’s budget looks dead in the water, which will give Democrats even more power to stop Trump’s agenda and save Medicaid.

What do you think about the idea that it might be House Republicans who save Medicaid? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Leave a comment

Delta airplane crashes on touchdown at Toronto airport, injuring at the least 15

First responders work at the Delta Air Lines plane crash site at Toronto Pearson International Airport in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada February 17, 2025.

Arlyn Mcadorey | Reuters

At least 15 people were injured after a Delta Air Lines regional jet crashed upon landing at Toronto Pearson International Airport Monday afternoon, officials said.

All 80 people on board — 76 passengers and four crew members — were evacuated from the plane, a CRJ-900 regional jet, after the accident, which occurred at about 2:45 p.m. ET, the Federal Aviation Administration said. Two people were airlifted in critical condition, according to Peel Regional Paramedic Services.

Emergency crews responded at the scene. Flights to the airport were temporarily halted but resumed as of 5 p.m. ET.

Delta said in a statement it was cancelling the remainder of its flights to and from Toronto Monday and issuing travel waivers to affected passengers.

“The hearts of the entire global Delta family are with those affected by today’s incident at Toronto-Pearson International Airport,” Delta CEO Ed Bastian said in the statement. “I want to express my thanks to the many Delta and Endeavor team members and the first responders on site.”

Delta Flight 4819, operated by the carrier’s regional subsidiary Endeavor, originated in Delta’s hub of Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport.

The Toronto airport said it had been expecting a busy day and a storm that dumped more than 8 inches of snow on the region, with an expected 130,000 travelers on board around 1,000 flights.

Weather reports showed wind of between 20 mph and 30 mph Monday, with gusts of up to 40 mph.

The Transportation Safety Board of Canada will lead the crash investigation, the FAA said. U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a post on social media X that FAA investigators were en route to Toronto and that he is working with his Canadian counterparts to assist in the investigation.

The accident comes weeks after a fatal midair collision in January at Washington D.C.’s Reagan International Airport, which killed all 64 people on an American Airlines regional jet and another three people on board an Army Black Hawk helicopter.

Separately, the FAA was recently hit by layoffs spearheaded by President Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, with several hundred air traffic controllers receiving firing notices over the weekend.

A U.S. Department of Transportation spokesperson told NBC News the FAA “continues to hire and onboard” air traffic controllers and that the agency has “retained employees” who perform critical safety functions.

Innovaccer launches AI brokers for docs, hospitals to repair burnout

Innovaccer CEO Abhinav Shashank.

Courtesy: Innovaccer

As doctors and nurses face historic rates of burnout, Innovacer says artificial intelligence is here to help.

The health-care data company on Monday announced a suite of AI agents that are designed to automate repetitive, “low-value” tasks for clinicians. 

“We just don’t have enough capacity in the health system to really serve everyone to the degree that they deserve,” Innovaccer CEO Abhinav Shashank told CNBC in an interview. “The need for an agentic workforce to supplement our caregivers is really, really high.”

AI agents can complete specific assignments without human intervention. They’re sweeping across all industries as the next phase of AI takes root, and are of particular importance in health care due to burnout, labor constraints and the amount of administrative work required of medical practitioners. A shortage of 100,000 critical health-care workers is expected by 2028, according to consulting firm Mercer.

Clinicians spend nearly nine hours a week on documentation alone, according to an October study from Google Cloud.

Shashank co-founded Innovaccer in 2014 to build a platform that could streamline information exchange across the health-care system. In recent years, the company has been building additional applications that can help doctors, care managers and administrative staff work more efficiently. 

Innovaccer serves more than 60 million patients in the U.S. each day, spread across more than 100 health systems. The company announced a $275 million funding round in January, from investors including Generation Investment Management, co-founded by Al Gore, Kaiser Permanente and Microsoft’s M12.

The company’s suite of AI agents is called Agents of Care. It initially includes seven different agents, though Shashank said Innovaccer will add more over time. The company also plans to open up the platform so startups and customers can build their own agents, he added. 

Innovacer shared demo videos with CNBC of its agent for protocol intake and another for referrals.

For protocol intake, Innovacer collects basic information from patients and can coordinate care manager follow-ups, the company said. It’s voice activated and calls patients by phone to ask questions like, “Can you please tell me in your own words what brought you to the emergency room?;” “Did your doctor clearly explain your diagnosis to you?;” and “Have you noticed any changes in your pain levels?” 

The agent converses with the patient in a natural cadence and can respond to specific details and problems. In the demo, a patient had fallen and hurt her ankle and was having trouble getting her pain medication. The agent said it would share that information with a care manager and scheduled a followup call for later that day.  

The referral agent is also voice activated and calls patients to connect them with the right specialists. In the demo, the agent helped a patient select a date and time for an appointment with a cardiologist and added a reminder to bring her photo ID, insurance card, a list of medications and relevant medical records. 

Innovaccer’s other new agents are for automatically booking and managing appointments and for providing 24-hour support for patient inquiries.

Shashank said if the company does its job well, its agents could help bring more care to patients and reduce clinician burnout in a “very meaningful” way. 

“If AI can have an impact anywhere, health care is the one place where it’s really, really needed,” he said. 

The company has been testing the agents at five health systems. Shashank said the agent for protocol intake has been the most popular so far since calling and checking on patients can be so time consuming.

Innovaccer is rolling out the suite to its existing customers, and said it will be widely available in two to three months.

WATCH: AI agents key at CES 2025

Younger Thug Drops THIS Response To Success Of Drake’s Album

Drake just dropped his album with PartyNextDoor, and even with all the beef he’s had in the industry, some artists are still hyped to see him win. Young Thug is definitely one of them! Thugga dropped a reaction after Drizzy locked in the #1 spot with his joint album with Party, ‘$ome $exy Songs 4 U.’

RELATED: Oop! Drake Addresses His Rap Beefs & Thanks 21 Savage Stickin’ By Him On New Album

Young Thug Celebrates The Success Of Drake & PartyNextDoor’s Album

Young Thug hit up X (formerly Twitter) to hype up his man’s big win after the joint project dropped on Friday, Feb. 14. Thugga was clearly excited about Drizzy snagging the #1 spot, writing, “That boy back number one” with a goat emoji.

Although Thugga didn’t drop Drake’s name, fans caught on quick once the stats started blowing up online.

Social Media Weighs In

The Roommates wasted no time filling The Shade Room’s comment section with reactions to Young Thug’s post. A lot of folks agreed — beef or not, Drake is still HIM.

Instagram user @myajasmineeee wrote, “I mean he still is Drake we can like both chile.” 

Instagram user @xoxo.coraea wrote, “Idc what people say Drake and Kendrick is two different kinds of music within the same genre. You can like both.” 

While Instagram user @charii_new1 wrote, “The Drizzy hate is only online 🙄” 

Then Instagram user @delvay_ wrote, “That lil beef never made Drake #2 in the first place the hell😂😂” 

Another Instagram user @therealbabyjuu wrote, “We not gone act like the rap beef killed Drake 😒 Drake is HIM.” 

Instagram user @whosaidwhattowhoo wrote, “Look at y’all switching up lmao.” 

While another Instagram user @1rxchtre wrote, “Kendrick is a real rapper that don’t file lawsuits in a beef tho 🔥🔥” 

Instagram user @therealdrillajas wrote, “Who said he was out the game he just lost that battle relax.” 

Lastly, Instagram user @legally_lexy wrote, “Period!! Y’all obsession to see him fail because of one damn song kmt.” 

Drake Thanks 21 Savage For Holding Him Down

Young Thug isn’t the only one currently holding Drake down. 21 Savage has also had his back too! As The Shade Room previously reported, the Canadian rapper even gave Savage a shoutout on their collaborative track, ‘Gimmie A Hug,’ crediting the rapper for checking on him during hard times. “Savage you the only n***a checking on me when we really in some sh*t, brudda,”

RELATED: To Be Clear! Social Media Pops Off After Drake Ends First Tour Show With THIS Reminder (VIDEO)

What Do You Think Roomies?

Eric Adams prosecutor quits DOJ over case dismissal order

Danielle Sassoon, assistant US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, left, arrives at court in New York, US, on Thursday, March 28, 2024. 

Yuki Iwamura | Bloomberg | Getty Images

A seventh federal prosecutor resigned Friday over the Department of Justice’s controversial order to dismiss criminal corruption charges against New York Mayor Eric Adams.

The prosecutor, Hagan Scotten, in a blistering letter to top DOJ official Emil Bove, said “I expect you will eventually find someone who is enough of a fool, or enough of a coward, to file your motion” to dismiss the Adams case.

“But it was never going to be me,” wrote Scotten, who had been the lead prosecutor in Adams’ case for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.

On Thursday, Scotten’s boss, acting U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon resigned in protest over Bove’s order to toss the case.

Within hours of Sassoon quitting, five top prosecutors at the DOJ resigned, rather than execute Bove’s order.

Scotten, a Harvard Law School grad and U.S. Army veteran who served in Iraq, had been placed on administrative leave by Bove on Thursday, along with another prosecutor on the Adams case, Derek Wikstrom.

Bove in a letter to Sassoon said he was taking that step after she indicated that Scotten and Wikstrom agreed with her decision to refuse to drop the case, and were “unwilling to comply with the order to dismiss this case.”

Bove said the prosecutors would be investigated by Attorney General Pam Bondi and the DOJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility for their conduct, along with Sassoon. Bondi then would determine if Scotten and the prosecutors should be fired, Bove wrote.

This is breaking news. Please refresh for updates.

Trump denies meddling in Eric Adams case as prosecutors stop

Danielle Sassoon, the acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, exits court in New York on Oct. 5, 2023.

Stephanie Keith | Bloomberg | Getty Images

President Donald Trump on Thursday denied instructing the Department of Justice to dismiss a criminal prosecution of New York City Mayor Eric Adams.

Trump’s denial came as the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan and five senior DOJ officials in Washington, D.C., resigned over an order to toss out the case against Adams, which was issued by a top DOJ official who previously represented Trump in his own criminal case.

“I didn’t,” Trump said at the White House when asked by a reporter if he requested the dismissal for Adam’s case.

“I know nothing about it. I did not,” Trump added.

Emil Bove, the high-ranking DOJ official who ordered the dismissal, said the DOJ would take over the case from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York and file a motion in Manhattan federal court to dismiss the charges against Adams.

Danielle Sassoon, the acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, was the first prosecutor to refuse to dismiss the case against the mayor, who sought to curry favor with Trump after being indicted last fall.

Sassoon in a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi strongly disagreed with Bove’s order and the rationale for it. She said Adams’ lawyers at a meeting with her and Bove had repeatedly “urged what amounted to a quid pro quo” in which the mayor supported Trump’s immigration enforcement efforts in exchange for the case’s dismissal.

“The idea that there was a quid pro quo is a total lie,” Adams’ lawyer Alex Spiro said in a statement. “We offered nothing and the department asked nothing of us.”

Sassoon also said her prosecutors had been prepared to seek an indictment of Adams on additional charges related to his alleged destruction of evidence and his instructing others to do so and provide false information to the FBI.

Within hours of Sassoon resigning, Adams announced that he would sign an order allowing federal immigration officers into the Rikers Island jail complex in New York City.

“This is a deal made with the devil to try to roll back our city’s longstanding sanctuary laws and policies — policies that allow all New Yorkers to live freely while improving everyone’s public safety,” said Murad Awawdeh, CEO of the New York Immigration Coalition, in a statement.

“Eric Adams has no integrity,” Awadeh said. “He just made himself complicit with the Trump administration’s detention to deportation pipeline in exchange for a Department of Justice promise to squash the five-count federal corruption charges against him.”

Sassoon, 38, told Bove that the prosecution team responsible for Adams’ case agreed with her decision not to dismiss the case, according to a scathing letter Bove sent her Thursday, which NBC News obtained.

Bove in that letter said the prosecutors on that team have been placed on administrative leave pending investigations by Attorney General Pam Bondi and the DOJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility, to determine if they should be fired or disciplined.

After Sassoon refused to dismiss the case Thursday, the matter was reassigned to John Keller, the acting head of the DOJ’s Public Integrity Section, who also refused to dismiss the case and then quit, NBC reported.

The Public Integrity Section oversees cases involving bribery of public officials.

Acting DOJ criminal division chief Kevin Driscoll also resigned Thursday after refusing to accept the Adams case.

At least three other senior officials in the DOJ’s Public Integrity Section quit after that following a meeting with the deputy attorney general.

Acting Chief of the Public Integrity Section John D. Keller.

Source: Department of Justice

The criminal case against Adams has not been dismissed as of Thursday afternoon.

Adams was indicted in September by a grand jury in U.S. District Court in Manhattan on charges related to alleged bribery, fraud and a decadelong campaign contribution scheme.

On Monday, Bove, who is a former criminal defense lawyer for Trump, ordered Sassoon to dismiss the case against Adams.

NBC on Thursday obtained a letter from Sassoon in which she wrote, “I attended a meeting on January 31, 2025, with Mr. Bove, Adams’ counsel, and members of my office.”

“Adams’s attorneys repeatedly urged what amounted to a quid pro quo, indicating that Adams would be in a position to assist with Department’s enforcement priorities only if the indictment were dismissed,” Sassoon wrote.

“Mr. Bove admonished a member of my team who took notes during that meeting and directed the collection of those notes at the meeting’s conclusion.”

Bove, in his own letter Thursday to Sassoon, acknowledged her resignation and her refusal to follow his order.

“This decision is based on your choice to continue pursuing a politically motivated prosecution despite an express instruction to dismiss the case,” Bove wrote in the letter.

“You lost sight of the oath that you took when you started at the Department of Justice by suggesting that you retain discretion to interpret the Constitution in a manner inconsistent with the policies of a democratically elected President and a Senate-confirmed Attorney General,” Bove wrote.

Deputy Assistant Attorney General Kevin Driscoll.

Source: U.S. Department of Justice

Bove’s letter says that he had directed Sassoon to dismiss the prosecution of Adams “based on well-founded concerns regarding weaponization, election interference and the impediments that the case has imposed on Mayor Adams’ ability to govern and cooperate with federal law enforcement to keep New York City safe.”

The letter says the DOJ’s investigation of Adams “was accelerated after Mayor Adams publicly criticized President Biden’s failed immigration policies.”

“Based on my review and our meetings, the charging decision was rushed as the 2024 Presidential election approached, and as the former U.S. Attorney appears to have been pursuing potential political appointments in the event Kamala Harris won that election,” Bove wrote.

Sassoon told SDNY staff in an email, “Moments ago, I submitted my resignation to the attorney general.”

“As I told her, it has been my greatest honor to represent the United States and to pursue justice as a prosecutor in the Southern District of New York. It has been a privilege to be your colleague, and I will be watching with pride as you continue your service to the United States.”

Sassoon had been the lead prosecutor at the fraud and conspiracy trial of Sam Bankman-Fried, the former head of the failed cryptocurrency exchange FTX. Bankman-Fried was sentenced last March to 25 years in prison.

Neuralink competitor Paradromics companions with Saudi Arabia’s Neom

Paradromics’ Connexus Brain-Computer Interface.

Courtesy: Paradromics

Texas-based neurotech startup Paradromics on Wednesday announced a strategic partnership with Saudi Arabia’s Neom and said it will establish a Brain-Computer Interface Center of Excellence in the region.

Neom is a developing area within northwest Saudi Arabia that’s touted as “a hub for innovation,” according to its website. The area’s strategic investment arm, the Neom Investment Fund, led the partnership. Paradromics declined to disclose the investment amount.

Paradromics is building a brain-computer interface, or a BCI, which is a system that deciphers brain signals and translates them into commands for external technologies. The company will work with Neom to “advance the development of BCI-based therapies” and set up the “premier center for BCI-based healthcare” in the Middle East and North Africa, it said in a release.

“Working together, we can accelerate the rate of innovation in BCI and expand access to impactful BCI-based therapies.” Paradromics CEO Matt Angle said in a statement.

Paradromics is one of several companies racing to commercialize BCIs, including Elon Musk’s startup Neuralink. Earlier this month, Neuralink announced it has implanted three human patients with its technology, according to a blog post. Precision Neuroscience and Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates-backed Synchron have also implanted their systems in humans.

None of these companies have secured the FDA’s final stamp of approval.

Paradromics’ BCI, the Connexus Brain-Computer Interface , formerly known as the Connexus Direct Data Interface, is an array of tiny electrodes designed to be implanted directly into the brain tissue. The system could eventually help patients with severe paralysis regain their ability to communicate by deciphering their neural signals. 

The company is gearing up to launch its first human trial this year, and announced its official patient registry in July. Paradromics’ technology has not yet been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and it still has a long way to go before commercialization. In 2023, the company received the FDA’s Breakthrough Device designation, which aims to help accelerate the go-to-market process.

Watch: Inside Paradromics, the Neuralink competitor hoping to commercialize brain implants before the end of the decade

CFPB employees purge begins with dozens of staff terminated

Acting director of the Office of Management and Budget Russell Vought speaks with reporters during a press briefing at the White House in Washington on March 11, 2019.

Jonathan Ernst | Reuters

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau sent termination notices to several dozen employees late Tuesday, according to people with knowledge of the situation.

The affected staff were mostly those with probationary status, said the people, who asked for anonymity to speak candidly after orders to stop all agency work, including speaking with reporters.

Being on probation means the employee is in a trial period, often lasting a year or two, after starting a new government position, and does not reflect performance, the people said.

The move comes amid a broader effort under President Donald Trump to trim federal staff. The Office of Personnel Management asked federal agencies for lists of all recently hired workers because they are the easiest to terminate, NBC News has reported. That has stoked fears of layoffs at places as disparate as the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Environmental Protection Agency.

CFPB staff have been on edge since late last week, when operatives of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency gained access to the agency. The CFPB headquarters have since been shuttered, while employees were told by acting CFPB director Russell Vought not to do any bureau work. Both Musk and Vought have called for the elimination of the CFPB.

‘First salvo’

“This is an unlawfully-executed mass firing,” said Johanna Hickman, senior CFPB litigation counsel who said she received the agency’s dismissal notice. “It’s almost certainly the first salvo in the dismantling of this agency, and a significant percentage of the federal workforce.”

Hickman, who said she started in her CFPB role in June of 2023, said the agency’s new leadership didn’t follow established federal protocol for dismissing probationary employees. “A lot of us are prepared to fight, and we are examining all our legal avenues,” she said.

The terminations have sowed more confusion at the bureau, as several of those being laid off had already accepted federal buyout offers, said one of the people.

Some being dismissed received form letters that did not include their specific names and titles, but left some fields filled with generic placeholders, said this person.

“Unfortunately, the Agency finds that you are not fit for continued employment because your ability, knowledge and skills do not meet the Agency’s current needs,” the CFPB told some who were dismissed, according to people who received the notices.

The terminations hit the CFPB’s enforcement division in particular because of a push under former director Rohit Chopra to boost hiring of enforcement lawyers, said another person. The agency had about 1,700 employees before the job cuts.

The CFPB declined to comment.

Don’t miss these insights from CNBC PRO

Khloe Kardashian Predicts Which Sister Will Have a Child Subsequent

Is the Kardashian-Jenner family expanding once again?

Not yet, but Khloe Kardashian—who shares kids True Thompson, 6, and Tatum Thompson, 2, with ex Tristan Thompson—is making a prediction about which family member will have a baby next.

“Not me,” she recently assured E! News’ Justin Sylvester, before predicting sister Kourtney Kardashian—mom to Mason Disick, 15, Penelope Disick, 12, Reign Disick, 10, and Rocky Barker, 15 months—will have a fifth child.

“She loves having babies and being pregnant,” Khloe explained, “so I can totally see her having another one.” (For more with Khloe, watch E! News on Feb. 10.)

And while the Khloe in Wonder Land host isn’t looking to grow her brood at the moment, she’s enjoying all that motherhood has to offer. In fact, as Khloe noted, having two kids has given her a whole new appreciation for Kris Jenner.

“The second I got pregnant, I had a complete different level of respect and patience for my mom,” Khloe said of Kris, who is also mom to Kim Kardashian, Rob Kardashian, Kendall Jenner and Kylie Jenner. “My mom and I have always had a very close relationship, but it could be testy at times like when I was younger.”

But, like many, Khloe’s perspective changed after having kids.