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Balfour Beatty appointed preferred bidder for £140 million North Lanarkshire schools education 2010 PPP Project

Balfour Beatty plc, the international engineering, construction and services group, announces today that it has been appointed preferred bidder by North Lanarkshire Council for its Education 2010 PPP Project. The concession involves capital works to the value of approximately £140 million and is likely to yield up to £100 million of long-term service revenue.

The 30-year concession, which is expected to reach financial close in October 2004, involves the construction of 24 new schools, including three large secondary schools in Airdrie and Coatbridge, seven primary schools and a further seven joint campus primary schools.

Commenting on today’s announcement, Balfour Beatty Chief Executive, Mike Welton, said: “We are delighted to be selected by North Lanarkshire Council as partners in realising their objective to provide the very best for the young people of the county through new, modern, state-of-the-art buildings which will provide the right learning environment. It is our objective to bring the same level of professionalism and service to this task as has been recently recognised in the work we are doing in Stoke.”

Balfour Beatty will invest some £7 million of equity in the project. Balfour Beatty Capital Projects and its joint venture partner, Innisfree Limited, will establish Transform Schools (North Lanarkshire) Ltd as the concession company.

Construction work will begin in autumn 2004 and will be carried out by a joint venture of Balfour Beatty subsidiary companies, Balfour Beatty Construction and Balfour Kilpatrick. The first schools will be handed over in December 2005. Facilities management for a range of hard and soft services will be provided by Haden Building Management, also a Balfour Beatty company.

Last month, Balfour Beatty’s education concession company, Transform Schools, won both Best Operational Educational Project and the overall top prize of Best Operational Project (All Sectors) at the 2004 Public Private Finance Awards, the PPP “Oscars”. The company won the awards for its 25-year Stoke Schools concession under which nine new schools are being built, 98 refurbished and full responsibility taken for maintenance and whole-life care of the complete 122 school stock.

Enquiries to:

Tim Sharp
Tel: 020 7216 6884

www.balfourbeatty.com

Notes to Editors

1. Balfour Beatty has two existing schools PPP concessions, in which Balfour Beatty Capital Projects, Balfour Beatty Construction, Balfour Kilpatrick and Haden Building Management fulfil the same roles as for the North Lanarkshire contract.
• In Stoke, Balfour Beatty is responsible for the largest “bundled refurbishment” scheme ever let in England under the PPP programme. The concession covers the entire school stock of 122 schools including rebuilding nine schools, refurbishing a further 98 and maintaining all 122 over the concession period of 25 years, which began in 2000.
• In Rotherham, Balfour Beatty is designing, building and/or refurbishing 15 schools and providing hard and soft facilities management services to the sites for the concession period of 31 years.


2. Balfour Beatty was recently awarded all design and construction work for schools in East Lothian in a contract worth some £40 million under the PPP concession for that council.
3. Balfour Beatty is providing all design and build services for Babcock and Brown in its schools PFI projects. Work secured under this arrangement to date exceeds £80 million, including the construction of five new schools in Calderdale, West Yorkshire.