Balfour Beatty's ВЈ147m Carlisle PFI road deal delayed again

Balfour Beatty’s beleaguered £147m Carlisle Northern Development Route is facing yet more delays as the firm struggles to raise PFI funding for the scheme.

Financial close on the already massively delayed project has been put back for the second time, from January to the end of March at the earliest, raising concerns about the future of the scheme.

Balfour Beatty’s consortium Connect CNDR was awarded the scheme in December 2007 and financial close was planned for October 2008. However it ground to a halt in the autumn after the consortium’s funding partner Franco-Belgian bank Dexia had to be bailed out with a ВЈ5bn loan from the French and Benelux governments. At the time financial close was put back until january. However Cumbria County Council told CJ today that the deal has been further delayed until March.

ADVERTISEMENT

 

A council spokesman said: “Talks are on going between the preferred bidder and several banks and we are hoping to finalise the deal towards the end of March. Very positive progress is being made and it looks like a deal is achievable in the next two months.”

The spokesman denied financial close on the Carlisle scheme is being held up while Balfour Beatty finds funding for its privately financed ВЈ5bn M25 widening deal. 

A spokeswoman for CNDR said: "Connect CNDR is working closely with Cumbria County Council to secure funding for the scheme. Talks with a number of banks are ongoing and have so far been very positive. These talks inevitably take time due to the detailed nature of the negotiations, checks and legal issues involved in securing such a large amount of money.

"We are hoping to secure financial closure as soon as possible, but in the meantime all the possible preparatory work is pressing ahead as planned so work can start on building the new road as soon as the funding is in place."

 

Angry homeowner sues Balfour Beatty over leaky moat
Dell to close part of Lebanon facility as PC sales slow
As economy falls, more people put money away in savings

Speymill bosses put up cash to keep contractor afloat

Directors of property and contracting group Speymill have put up their own money in the form of a ВЈ3.3m loan to provide working capital for the contracting arm Speymill Contracts.

Earlier this week Speymill asked for its shares to be suspended pending a statement on its finances after the board warned that Speymill Contracts, which specialises in design and build for the hotel and leisure industry, had realised a significant loss before tax. Speymill Contracts has been hit by the collapse of several clients and subcontractors.

Chief executive Jim Mellon has committed ВЈ3m of the loan and fellow director Bob MacDonald has committed ВЈ300,000. The loan runs for 18 months at an interest rate is 12% a year with a facility fee of 3%.

ADVERTISEMENT

 

The loan can be drawdown in three equal instalments with the first immediately available, the next on 5 February and the final instalment available from 1 March.

The board plans to convert the loan into convertible preferred shares as part of an offer in which all shareholders of Speymill will have the opportunity to participate.

As well as its construction arm, Speymill Contracts, it manages two AIM-listed overseas property funds – Speymill Deutsche and Speymill Macau – and has an asset management company, Goal, and a retirement village joint venture.

'" A < ?>

As economy falls, more people put money away in savings
Cash disputes soar as credit crunch bites
Freddie, Fannie extend eviction freeze a month
Ringway buys BAR-W Airports

Controlled Group belatedly signs off 2007 results; shows ВЈ1.8m loss

Controlled Group (formerly Controlled Demolition Group) has run up a further pre-tax loss – this time amounting to £1.8m.

The company only signed off its latest accounts — for the 12 months to 30 September 2007 — on 12 January 2009.

Turnover of ВЈ10m was up from the figure of ВЈ7.4m in the previous year when Controlled made a pre-tax loss of ВЈ2.0m.

The financial troubles were eased during the period thanks to the issue of 135,000 shares to existing shareholders on 25 July 2007 which brought in ВЈ1.35m.

Even so the shareholder loans, which started the period at a figure of ВЈ1.8m, still ran to ВЈ1.1m at the close.

These loans are repayable on demand. Interest is payable at 2% above LIBOR (the London inter-bank overnight rate) but such was the state of the accounts that “shareholders waived interest on loans for the period 6 Feb 2006 to 30 Sep 2007”.

ADVERTISEMENT

 

That represented a saving of ВЈ180,000.

On the same day as the new shares were printed, Controlled Holdings (formerly Nigg Plant) purchased the entire share capital of Controlled Group and became the immediate controlling party.

Controlled Holdings is owned by the previous shareholders of Controlled Group.

The accounts state: “Since the year-end the company has continued to progress. " But immediately after that up-beat comment it adds: “The company experienced another difficult year in 2007 as it struggled to gain market share while still carrying the overheads required for a much larger operation.”

Progress there might have been, but not enough to bring Controlled’s loss-making run to an end as there will be “an unaudited loss for the 11 months to 30 September 2008 of £245,000”.

There is no explanation as to why the group has only published results for an 11-month period rather than a full year.

Controlled says that the £245,000 loss is a “significant improvement on the results for 2007”.

Trade creditors were paid in the equivalent of 48 days’ purchases.

The balance sheet shows that Controlled started the year in question with a shareholders’ deficit of £480,000 and ended the period with double the deficit, at £900,000.

Cummings Inc. founder dies at 89
Pettifer Construction: not a penny for unsecured creditors
GM to end jobs bank Monday
Titon suffers 17% drop in demand

Ringway buys BAR-W Airports

Ringway, the highway services provider, has acquired BAR-W Airports, a specialist airside civil engineering contractor with UK-wide operations.

BAR-W Airports business will merge with Ringway Airport Services, a division of Ringway Infrastructure Services.

BAR-W Airports’ 25 employees will transfer to Ringway as part of the acquisition taking the total in the business to 60-70.

Rob Gillespie, divisional director, said the enlarged annual turnover would run to around ВЈ6m.

BAR-W Airports adds to Ringway’s portfolio of specialist airport services which include:

TrackJet rubber removaljoint sealingfuel resistant treatmentsconcrete repairsgrooving on runways

In addition, the business installs aircraft ground lighting (AGL), instrument landing systems (ILS) and radar infrastructure.

The combined organisation holds term contracts across 22 airports in the UK from minor small works packages to 3- to 6-year maintenance contracts.

Nashville leads effort to combine health payments
Busy 2008 for dispute resolution specialist PJ English
As Tennessee job losses soar, Bridgestone plans cuts

Cemex suffered 36% dive in UK sales in latest three months' figures

The final three months of 2008 were rather grim for Cemex’s operations in the UK as sales were 36% down (to £220m) as compared with the same quarter of 2007.

That in turn led to a loss of ВЈ13m.

Elsewhere things were little better for Cemex as sales globally dropped by 23% in the fourth quarter of 2008 to ВЈ3.1bn compared with Q4 of the previous year.

Despite the falls, Cemex was partly successful in making the existing prices for its products stick.

Hector Medina, vice president of Cemex, said: "2008 was one of extraordinary volatility. The fourth quarter was one of the most difficult quarters in recent history.

“We remain focused on paying down debt and improving efficiency."

Globally Cemex made a loss of ВЈ500m in the fourth quarter despite tightening its belt.

ADVERTISEMENT

 

Net debt at the end of 2008 ran to ВЈ13bn.

The net-debt-to-EBITDA ratio reached 4.0 times at the close of the fourth quarter of 2008 compared with 3.4 times at the close of the third quarter of 2008.

Elsewhere:

sales in Spain were 49% lower than in the fourth quarter of 2007 sales in the rest of Europe were 11% lower sales in Africa and Middle East were 46% higher





Titon suffers 17% drop in demand
Dell to close part of Lebanon facility as PC sales slow
Cash disputes soar as credit crunch bites

CBI construction chiefs back council house building plan

The influential CBI Construction Council has welcomed Gordon Brown's plan to kick-start social house building by allowing council's to buy provate developers land.

The plan will see the Treasury relax exisitng rules to allow councils to take a lead in house building by using all of their receipts from housing sales and rents to buy land to build houses for rent or shared ownership.

John McDonough, chairman of the CBI’s Construction Council, said: “At a time when house-builders are laying off thousands of skilled workers because of the lack of demand in the private sector, building more social housing will certainly help ease some of the pain the industry is going through.

But Mr McDonough warned that more than trebling the number of starts from around 20,000 to 70,000 would be a challenge.

ADVERTISEMENT

 

“The reality on the ground is that projects are getting bogged down in planning delays and some firms are being asked to re-bid for work as councils try to drive down costs.

“With the construction industry increasingly reliant on public sector spending to help off-set the weakness of the private sector, we need Government and local authorities to work with us so we can get back on track to meet targets for building new homes.

“But the housing market as a whole will not begin to stabilise until private buyers, particularly first-time buyers, can get mortgages at affordable loan to value ratios.”

U.S. home sales rise in December
Ramboll Whitbybird to sue Shepherd Construction over payment row

Titon suffers 17% drop in demand

Titon, the UK ventilation systems and hardware manufacturer, has suffered a 17% fall in demand.

In a Stock Exchange statement today Titon says that in the three-month period up from 1 October there was a substantial squeeze on demand for its products.

“As anticipated, the market slowdown experienced towards the end of the last financial year has worsened, resulting in overall revenues for the three months to 31 December 2008 to be 17.1% lower than the corresponding period of 2007,” says the group.

Previous cost control and working capital management programmes have delivered the results expected but Titon warns that having seen the further deterioration in demand additional cost saving measures are being drawn up.

Titon had a cash balance of ВЈ2.4m at the end of December.

48 Home Depot stores will close; Nashville loses 1
Why failure to plan is at the root of many project failures
Pettifer Construction: not a penny for unsecured creditors
U.S. home sales rise in December