UK Government Eurostar sale

[WatcherZero]

According to the news Danny Alexander will today be giving a speech at the Institution of Civil Engineers, the Government will be announcing revised infrastructure plans including doubling the planned sell off of state assets to £20bn, this sell off will include its 40% stake in Eurostar (value unknown) £3bn from the nuclear firm Urenco and other state assets, pension funds have also agreed to invest £25bn over the next five years. Theres suggestions the Government may have been spooked into the sell off of Eurostar by its bidding for the East Coast franchise and creating a conflict of interest.


As to what they will do with the money they are going to claim to have increased infrastructure spending by 2030 by 20% (including reannoucing recently announced projects like the Nuclear plant at Somerset). They will drop plans for A14 to become a toll road meaning they will have to stump up the £1.5bn cost themselves, they are going to announce a line of credit to Hitachi to build a nuclear power plant at Wylfa on Anglesey, £1bn towards the Battersea Underground line, £50m for Gatwick Airport Station, rest unknown.

Of course the reality is that despite their promises of large investment this Government has a poor of actually delivering, infrastructure investment fell by 10% last year and 3.7% this year and barely any of their top 40 highest priority projects have even broken ground.

Other privatisations they may announce or be planning to reach their £20bn goal:
Channel 4 estimated value £500m
Commonwealth Development Corporation £2.5bn
Post Office £800m
NATS air traffic control £300m
Royal Mint, Met Office, Ordnance Survey and other support services £900m-£1.7bn

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25201064

 

[61653 HTAFC]

Hmmm... The UK Government owning a minority stake in a possible franchise holder is a conflict of interest, yet the Dutch/German/French government owning or part-owning a TOC is no problem? :roll:

 

[yorksrob]

I wonder, do the powers that be actually have a policy for when they‘ve finally sold everything that‘s not screwed down?

 

[DownSouth]

I wonder, do the powers that be actually have a policy for when they‘ve finally sold everything that‘s not screwed down?

Start selling the stuff that is screwed down, of course!

 

[sarahj]

I'm wondering what this £50 million for Gatwick is for, since a new platform is about to reopen, new lifts etc have just been put in on other platforms, plus new waiting rooms. Mind this gov has a habbit of announcing things more than once. I'm sure I heard the upgrade to the tyne and wear metro in about 3 budget speaches just to have something to say about money they were spending.

 

[swt_passenger]

I'm wondering what this £50 million for Gatwick is for, since a new platform is about to reopen, new lifts etc have just been put in on other platforms, plus new waiting rooms. Mind this gov has a habbit of announcing things more than once. I'm sure I heard the upgrade to the tyne and wear metro in about 3 budget speaches just to have something to say about money they were spending.

The last government did exactly the same, and it could be said that they invented the trend for repeating announcements of the same old stuff.

The Gatwick improvements are being discussed in the main infrastructure forum and apparently they are different to the P7 stuff already near completion.

 

[dosxuk]

Start selling the stuff that is screwed down, of course!

And then sell the screws.

 

[SF-02]

Selling off £20 bn worth of assets? On the cheap again? How much is a panic measure I wonder as Osbourne is way behind on reducing the deficit - it's projected to be £110 billion this year which is 7% of GDP. To compare - Germany has no deficit and country's that are supposed to be in turmoil have less - France 3.5%, Spain 6%, Portugal 6%, Italy 3%.

The plan was for the deficit to be gone by 2015. Now it's 2020. It's so large that even 5% annual growth over the next 2 years won't eliminate it and it's that backdrop that is leading to these sell offs. The fact that infrastructure increases long term wealth but building under expensive PFI and flogging off assets cheap does not help long term does not seem to occur to them.

 

[asylumxl]

The plan was for the deficit to be gone by 2015. Now it's 2020. It's so large that even 5% annual growth over the next 2 years won't eliminate it and it's that backdrop that is leading to these sell offs. The fact that infrastructure increases long term wealth but building under expensive PFI and flogging off assets cheap does not help long term does not seem to occur to them.

The latter would not be to the benefit of their friends .

 

[gordonthemoron]

PFI also increases the deficit

 

[cle]

How stupid to sell Eurostar as it is possibly on the brink of a second golden era - what with new trains for the first time, and expansion into Netherlands, Germany, Southern France and Switzerland.

Unless they're selling on the basis of that future value, but I doubt it. It's just Brown's gold again. Morons - anything for their one pathetic headline on debt reduction and screw the long term benefits of everything else.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

this sell off will include its 40% stake in Eurostar (value unknown)

It would be funny if the buyer of LCR's 40% is SNCF, which means the French would then totally control Eurostar just as they control Eurotunnel.
The percentage split is currently 55/40/5 SNCF/LCR/SNCB.
Even more interesting if DB buys it.
Or I suppose it could be a pension fund or equity investor.
BA and National Express were previous investors in the UK share.

 

[gordonthemoron]

or China

 

[woolwinder]

It would be funny if the buyer of LCR's 40% is SNCF, which means the French would then totally control Eurostar just as they control Eurotunnel.
The percentage split is currently 55/40/5 SNCF/LCR/SNCB.
Even more interesting if DB buys it.
Or I suppose it could be a pension fund or equity investor.
BA and National Express were previous investors in the UK share.

Yes I'll go along with SNCF, but using one of their private companies Keolis, who are a the bid partner of the eurostar bid for the ECML.

 

[Jordeh]

It would be funny if the buyer of LCR's 40% is SNCF, which means the French would then totally control Eurostar just as they control Eurotunnel.
The percentage split is currently 55/40/5 SNCF/LCR/SNCB.
Even more interesting if DB buys it.
Or I suppose it could be a pension fund or equity investor.
BA and National Express were previous investors in the UK share.

What are you basing "the French" controlling Eurotunnel on?

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

What are you basing "the French" controlling Eurotunnel on?

Right from the beginning, French shareholders owned more of the company than the British, the ratio being something like 2:1.
I think the corporate changes during the various financial restructurings since have make the French domination even greater.
I can't give you figures (though I am a shareholder), but it is essentially a French-managed company.
HQ is in Paris and the majority of operations staff are in Cocquelles.
They have a French CEO.

 

[BananaRepublic]

BA and National Express were previous investors in the UK share.

BA have never been shareholders in Eurostar.
They were one of the shareholders in the management company (Inter-Capital and Regional Rail), who were hired to manage and run Eurostar between 1998 and 2010, but never had any owning interest in Eurostar itself.

NEX were previously shareholders in London and Continental Railways, the parent company of the British share of Eurostar.
They were also (like BA) shareholders in Inter-Capital and Regional Rail.

 

[IKBrunel]

What are you basing "the French" controlling Eurotunnel on?

The clue is in the name..."Groupe Eurotunnel S.A."
S.A. being the French equivalent of a PLC.