Ballast Wiltshier grabs first Scots schools PFI

A Ballast Wiltshier consortium has signed the UK's first major Private Finance Initiative schemes for education in a £340 million deal with a local authority in Scotland.

The PFI deal followed the Department of Environment, Transport and the Regions (DETR) giving the go ahead to 15 more privately financed local authority schemes in England.

The new English PFI projects are on top of the 51 Government-supported schemes for local authorities in the country, which totals £500 million for 1998-99. The Government plans to increase the support by another £300 million in 1999-2000.

Ballast Wiltshier's partners in Class 98, the PFI company which will build five schools for Falkirk Council, are investment bank Charterhouse Private Equity, majority shareholder with a £6 million investment, and merchant bank Quayle Munro which is the consortium's financial adviser.

Debt funding comes from the Bank of Scotland and the European Investment Bank, which is lending £37 million. Technical and legal advisers to the financiers are Mott MacDonald and Dundas and Wilson.

Class 98 has a 25-year contract to provide non-educational services for the council's planned new schools, which are estimated to have a total capital cost of £70 million. Facilities management consultant is WS Atkins and Ballast Wiltshier will undertake FM responsibilities once the schools are completed in August 2000. The PFI scheme is one of the Scottish Office's 'Pathfinder' projects.