The speculators these days are unlikely to have lost a material amount of their own money, that isn't the way capitalism works now. Capital is quickly replaced by debt, with interest charges double those at which goverment could borrow. The losers in an insolvency are consumers, creditors, possibly banks, and this time the public purse.
Regulation (specifically consumer price caps) presumably has a part to play as well. Privatising these companies can really only be attempted with such regulation but what you end up with is a one way bet for the investors - the surplus if there is any goes to them, if it goes wrong then the losses hit other people and off they go to the next one.
Consumers have on various estimates benefitted from utility privatisations through efficiency gains but those gains tend to be very visibly linked to regulatory action, which makes one wonder how effective competition really is. The efficiency gains have not reduced real cost, which has increased faster than inflation. And events like these come along and wipe out the claimed gains.
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