UK's Labour would pay 20 bln stg in water nationalisation - Sunday Times

LONDON, May 4 (Reuters) - A future Labour government would offer shareholders in British water utilities a total of 20 billion pounds ($26 billion) in a nationalisation programme, compared with a current market value of around 44 billion pounds, the Sunday Times newspaper said.

Citing extracts from an internal Labour Party briefing document, the newspaper said Labour only intended to compensate shareholders for investment already put into the utilities, and not for the loss of future profits.

"Shareholder investment on the books of UK water and sewerage companies is less than 20 billion pounds," the newspaper quoted the document as saying.

"We think this is a better place to start than market values because it reflects how much shareholders have actually put into a company, and doesn’t incorporate future expected profits, which will not exist under public ownership," the document added. ($1 = 0.7589 pounds) (Reporting by David Milliken; Editing by Meredith Mazzilli)