[original thread on uk.railway]
[x-posted to ik.transport.london]

On May 7, 11:59*pm, Bruce wrote:
Quite a surprise except to those who knew about the negotiations:

"Tube Lines' shareholders agree £310M buyout deal with TfL

Shareholders of London Underground contractor Tube Lines have tonight
agreed a buyout deal with Transport for London (TfL) for the PPP
arrangement with a price tag of £310M.

The dramatic decision follows months of rows between the two parties
over the cost of the upgrade and maintenance of the Piccadilly,
Northern and Jubilee Lines over the next seven and a half years.

However, the parties confirmed that Amey will continue to provide
management and maintenance during that period under the existing
contract with Tube Lines and that Bechtel will remain for an interim
period to ensure a smooth transition of the capital improvement
programme into TfL."

First Metronet, now Tube Lines. *The effective end of the PPP!

Blimey - didn't see that coming, not at all!

Dunno where the above came from, but there's more from the FT (if
people can access it - still not quite clear on how their pay wall
works):
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9ec35512-5...nclick_check=1
or via http://tinyurl.com/2eogf8y

A short extract from the FT piece:
---quote---
Chris Bolt, the contract’s arbiter, had been close to ruling that TfL
would have to raise £600m in new finance towards the £4.46bn cost of
Tube Lines’ maintenance and upgrade work on underground track,
stations and trains over the seven and a half years starting from July
1 this year. TfL had been furious at the prospect that it, rather than
the contractor, would have to raise the money.

The deal to pay the US’s Bechtel and Spain’s Ferrovial £310m for the
business had been proposed two weeks ago, according to one person
involved. But it had been postponed until after the general election
because of rules preventing controversial public sector decisions in
the period immediately before a general election.
---/quote---

Of course Tube Lines had been saying that the amount due from TfL /
LUL was £6.8bn - LUL had argued that it should be £4.0bn, whilst the
PPP arbiter Chris Bolt had issued a draft determination of £4.46bn
[1].

When I first read the post I was going to say something like what a
coincidence that this should happen on the day when the (political)
architect of the PPP, Gordon Brown, got his marching orders - or
rather, a somewhat muddled but polite request to vacate the premises
once he finishes his drink as time had been called (I think Mr Cameron
will assume the Premiership within a few days, with or without a deal
with the LibDems). However as the above excerpt from the FT piece
makes clear, my reflex thought process totally managed to overlook the
crucial issue of the election purdah - the announcement was in fact
being delayed until today.

Anyhow, the messy, wasteful experiment of PPP seems to have bitten the
dust, seemingly quite out of the blue. Let's just hope that money for
upgrading the Underground doesn't completely dry up - the primary
reason for the big investment programme of recent years was because of
the eons of underinvestment (or just a total lack of any investment)
in the network.

-----
[1] The source for those figures being the Guardian he
http://preview.tinyurl.com/yzra69b

On May 8, 1:38*am, Mizter T wrote:
[snip]
Dunno where the above came from, but there's more from the FT (if
people can access it - still not quite clear on how their pay wall
works):
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9ec35512-5...44feab49a.html
or via http://tinyurl.com/2eogf8y

Or else search Google News for the title of the piece - "TfL buys last
London Tube contractor" (published May 7 at 22:30) - it should be
accessible via a Google search for a period at least.

Mizter T wrote:
[original thread on uk.railway]
[x-posted to ik.transport.london]

On May 7, 11:59*pm, Bruce wrote:
Quite a surprise except to those who knew about the negotiations:

"Tube Lines' shareholders agree £310M buyout deal with TfL

Shareholders of London Underground contractor Tube Lines have tonight
agreed a buyout deal with Transport for London (TfL) for the PPP
arrangement with a price tag of £310M.


Let's see if I've got this right. The Tories are, in effect,
nationalising a private sector setup that Labour created...

My brain hurts!!!

On Fri, 7 May 2010 17:38:24 -0700 (PDT), Mizter T
wrote:

[original thread on uk.railway]
[x-posted to ik.transport.london]


Thanks for that, Mizter T. I remembered I should have cross-posted it
just after pressing the "Send" button. Too little sleep. :-(

On May 8, 9:15*am, solar penguin wrote:

Mizter T wrote:
[original thread on uk.railway]
[x-posted to ik.transport.london]

On May 7, 11:59*pm, Bruce wrote:
Quite a surprise except to those who knew about the negotiations:

"Tube Lines' shareholders agree £310M buyout deal with TfL

Shareholders of London Underground contractor Tube Lines have tonight
agreed a buyout deal with Transport for London (TfL) for the PPP
arrangement with a price tag of £310M.

Let's see if I've got this right. The Tories are, in effect,
nationalising a private sector setup that Labour created...

My brain hurts!!!

Not so much "the Tories" as just the Tory Mayor, and he's probably
simply going with the flow and subscribing to the line from TfL
(Transport Commissioner Peter Hendy et al) that PPP was a general pain
in the arse. Remember one of his other big things he bangs on about is
"taxpayer value (for money)" - given the (draft) determination from
the PPP arbiter it looks like it simply makes financial sense for TfL
to buy up Tube Lines if they can, and they could, as the owners were
willing to sell - not least because after the PPP arbiter's much lower
determination of money due to them from LUL, it became rather less
worthwhile being in the infraco business in the first place.
Two further things to note - one is that the new Tories are apparently
rather less wedded to PFI schemes (and by extension PPP) - ideology no
longer appears to trump all - this seems to be a pragmatic approach
based on the real-world experience that PFI often doesn't deliver
value for money, and quite often delivers quite the opposite. (We
shall see what they do in government though.)

The second point is that Livingstone, were he still mayor, would
undoubtedly have absolutely leapt at this opportunity too. The Ken and
Boris positions on PPP are pretty much the same - Boris has pretty
much just continued Ken's approach to it all. (Also look at TfL's
purchase of Tramtrack Croydon Ltd, the 'owner' of Tramlink in '08 -
this was all set up under Ken's mayoralty but actually completed just
after Boris got in - however Boris professed his approval as an
example of VFM.)

I dunno whether this deal would have needed approval from central
government, i.e. the Treasury and/or DfT, and so when this approval
would have been sought (i.e. before or during the election campaign),
but another poster - D7666/ Nick - suggests (in the uk.railway
iteration of this thread) that this idea had been doing the rounds for
some time, so I'd guess they had some idea - and id necessary had
given it at least their provisional blessing - some time ago.
Nonetheless, a bit embarrassing for Gordon Brown - though I can't
imagine he would have been petulant enough to try and block it
(indeed, it's gone through so it would seem not), not least because it
simply makes financial sense - but it'd be interesting to know if it
was somehow delayed so that it didn't come out until after the
election...

On May 8, 10:45*am, Bruce wrote:

On Fri, 7 May 2010 17:38:24 -0700 (PDT), Mizter T
wrote:

[original thread on uk.railway]
[x-posted to ik.transport.london]

Or indeed *UK*.transport.london (as opposed to IK !)


Thanks for that, Mizter T. *I remembered I should have cross-posted it
just after pressing the "Send" button. *Too little sleep. *:-(

No problem - you were very on the ball to pick this up - I was just
make sure the good news was propagated to one and all ASAP!

On Sat, 8 May 2010 02:58:03 -0700 (PDT), Mizter T
wrote:
On May 8, 10:45*am, Bruce wrote:

On Fri, 7 May 2010 17:38:24 -0700 (PDT), Mizter T
wrote:

[original thread on uk.railway]
[x-posted to ik.transport.london]

Or indeed *UK*.transport.london (as opposed to IK !)


Thanks for that, Mizter T. *I remembered I should have cross-posted it
just after pressing the "Send" button. *Too little sleep. *:-(

No problem - you were very on the ball to pick this up


My sources alerted me earlier in the day, but I couldn't say anything
until it was released to the press.

The shenanigans around Tim O'Toole's proposed appointment to Tube
Lines told me several weeks ago that something was afoot, so I delved,
and delved, and found out that something was going on, but no-one
could tell me what - they know it will go straight to uk.r (and to
uk.t.l if I remember!). So my antenna have been twitching for a few
weeks now ... ;-)


- I was just
make sure the good news was propagated to one and all ASAP!


Good news indeed. Very good news!

On 8 May, 11:16, Bruce wrote:

Good news indeed. *Very good news!

In real terms, what difference will this make?

On May 8, 12:01*pm, Paul Corfield wrote:

On Sat, 08 May 2010 11:16:46 +0100, Bruce wrote:

On Sat, 8 May 2010 02:58:03 -0700 (PDT), Mizter T
wrote:
No problem - you were very on the ball to pick this up

He was?

Well, I hadn't come across any suggestion of it - I'm not even
remotely in the loop of course.


My sources alerted me earlier in the day, but I couldn't say anything
until it was released to the press.

Given that there was an article in the Times which someone at Tube Lines
sent to me at work before 8am yesterday morning what was it that you
couldn't say?

The Times article was embargoed because of the election AIUI.

I was called at 2135 last night to say the deal had gone through and
Paul Waugh stuck something up on the Standard website at 2153.

A copy of the internal notice and TfL Press Release were posted to a
Yahoo group I belong to before 2230 last night.

The shenanigans around Tim O'Toole's proposed appointment to Tube
Lines told me several weeks ago that something was afoot, so I delved,
and delved, and found out that something was going on, but no-one
could tell me what - they know it will go straight to uk.r (and to
uk.t.l if I remember!). *So my antenna have been twitching for a few
weeks now ... ;-)

Oh really. *Only weeks. *Behind the times as usual then.

Good news indeed. *Very good news!

Well if you want to see people like me sacked then yes I suppose so.
Peoples' livelihoods are all wrapped up in this you know.

In and of itself that's not really a strong defence of the current
arrangements that appear to be widely viewed as rather flawed, and
that's a broad opinion that I think it's fair to say that you yourself
have voiced a number of times beforehand (I don't want to misrepresent
your views though). I do of course realise that this is all rather
close to the bone - we know about the 'efficiency savings' that
happened when Metronet got subsumed into the LU structure as a result
of duplication being cut out - and I would hope that LU realise
they've got an asset in you (and others) and that there aren't going
to be any compulsory redundancies as a result of the subsequent
reorganisation.

On Sat, 8 May 2010, Mizter T wrote:

On May 8, 10:45*am, Bruce wrote:

On Fri, 7 May 2010 17:38:24 -0700 (PDT), Mizter T
wrote:

[original thread on uk.railway]
[x-posted to ik.transport.london]

Or indeed *UK*.transport.london (as opposed to IK !)

Would ik.transport.london be restricted to discussing the GWR and the
Thames Tunnel?

tom

--
made up languages, delusions, skin diseases and unaided human flight