My provider of water is Thames Water. In the past 10 years, they did cumulative turnover £18,107 turnover, and profit -£1,180. So they in fact operate with a negative margin -6.52%.

In the UK, owning a utility company is nothing easy. Shareholders are definitely not stuffing their pockets. The biggest owner is Ontario pension fund (32%). I guess, poor retired Canadians are not very happy about this investment.

So I would say, your framing sounds interesting, until one digs deeper into facts.