Privatisation was done by injecting huge amounts of money to write off the debts of the utilities to be flogged off.
They were then vastly undervalued and sold for a fraction of their worth, further robbing the tax payer who owned them.
The promise was that privatisation would bring competition which would result in cheaper bills. But that was all a con, and bills are 40% higer than before privatisation. In short, it has been a huge expensive failure.
The Government can borrow money cheaply. And the utility companies make vast profits. So the £2billion that the water industry pays its shareholders annually, would more than cover the cost of buying the industry and renationalising it.