Carillion sells Barclay Mowlem to Laing O'Rourke Australia for £30m

Following its £310m spend on acquiring Mowlem, Carillion is to sell Barclay Mowlem, the construction group's Australian division, for £30m.

The buyer is Laing O'Rourke Australia.

With a head office in Sydney, the operations are focussed in the construction markets in Australia and south-east Asia. Barclay Mowlem is seen by Carillion to be non-core and the proceeds of the sale will be used to trim back Carillion's debt, which is running £100m higher than the group would wish.

In 2005, Barclay Mowlem ran up a loss of more than £16m on turnover of £380m. It was a major contributory factor to the woes that took Mowlem to within three months of financial collapse.

One element not included in the package is Barclay Mowlem's 14% interest in Freightlink, a special purpose vehicle responsible for the Alice-to-Darwin PPP rail project.