"Roland Perry" wrote in message
In message , at 13:07:07 on
Thu, 1 Dec 2011, Recliner remarked:
Battersea Power Station is going into receivership, with its £5.5bn
development scheme in tatters, two days after George Osborne and
Boris Johnson posed in hardhats to announce an enterprise zone and
tube extension to the listed building.
Given the timing, we can only assume that there was something extra
required (in terms of handouts from George/Boris) to save the
project, and what they offered was not deemed adequate and was
therefore the 'last straw'.
I think it's more complicated than that. This project was controlled
by indebted Irish property magnates, who have finally run out of
credit. The project may actually have more of a future without them
(and without the power station, too).
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ba01cc9e-1...#axzz1fHuHjBRw
But the timing suggests that the latest George/Boris offer was too
little to late, and that's what's tipped the creditors into action.
Or perhaps it's a co-incidence and just a 30th November thing (having
given that as a deadline for whatever).
I suspect this action was already underway -- these things don't happen
overnight. It's been building up for at least a few weeks.
ps Please don't post links to things behind paywalls.
Ah, sorry, I got into it via Google, which gets you past the paywall.
Here's what it says in part:
"Lenders to Battersea Power Station have moved to take control of the
building, drawing an end to months of speculation about plans for the
derelict London landmark.
Lloyds and Ireland's National Asset Management Agency will on Thursday
notify Battersea Power Station Shareholder Vehicle (BPSSV), the holding
company behind the Grade II listed building, that they intend take the
site into receivership.
The move follows months of talk about a possible takeover of the
riverside site, which includes the disused power station and large areas
of waste land on the 38-acre plot.
Real Estate Opportunities, the majority owner of BPSSV, has been seeking
a partner to help develop the site, which it bought for £400m five years
ago. Recent rumours have included takeover bids from Roman Abramovich's
Chelsea Football Club and a £262m offer from Malaysian property
developer SP Setia to take over the senior debt.
However, Lloyds and Nama, the Irish bad bank, which hold almost equal
shares of a total £325m of debt on the site, are understood to have
tired with REO's failure to find a buyer.
The lenders will hope to take control of the sale process after
appointing administrators at the end of next week. According to people
familiar with the situation, Lloyds and Nama then plan to run an
open-market auction process to try and offload the development.
A large number of property developers, investors and sports and
entertainment companies have cast an eye over the power station since it
was decommissioned almost 30 years ago. Ideas for the building, with its
quartet chimneys that are established punctuation marks on the London
skyline, and surrounding land have included upmarket flats, offices and
a theme park.
REO itself had planned to turn Battersea Power Station into a huge
office and residential scheme and, at the end of last year, valued the
site at £498m, assuming planning permission was granted.
However, the high costs of installing infrastructure to Battersea have,
thus far, stymied redevelopment. As well as the complications of working
around a large listed building, any successful venture on the site would
almost certainly be predicated on the construction of a tube line, which
would cost hundreds of millions of pounds."
Also see
http://www.businessweek.com/news/201...rail-link.html