Amec sells project division for £164m

Amec has completed another stage in the sale of the various parts of its £1.2bn-a-year turnover Built Environment division, seen as non-core by new chief executive Samir Brikho.

The Project Investments business, containing nine PFI assets, has changed hands for £164m. The buyer is Land Securities Trillium (LST), which currently runs and operates more than 100 PFI/PPP projects, most of them in the health and education sectors.

Project Investments is led by Janet Chamberlain. The rest of the lead team comprises Ian Wolstenholme (new business), Tony Rogers (legal services) and Phillip Dodd (project finance). They will be integrated into LST.

Latest financial figures show a profit of £5.5m from Project Investments in 2006, with gross assets standing on Amec's books at a figure of £72m.

The Built Environment disposal has been achieved by selling off numerous chunks, one by one.

Five specialist non-core businesses to have found new owners during the past four months are: Amec Spie Rail, Buchan Concrete, Dynamic Structures, Amec Spie Capag and Midwest Pipelines.

A month ago, Morgan Sindall bought two of the bigger elements, taking Property Developments as well as UK Building and Civil Engineering for a knock-down sum of £26m.

Amec now has just one business still to sell on.

This is what the group calls Building and Facilities Services. It has an annual turnover of more than £200m and has always turned in a profit. It was previously branded as Matthew Hall.

Excluded from the latest deal with LST is Amec's stake in the Incheon Bridge in Korea and Amec Wind, which is staying with the future streamlined Amec.

Amec has sold off elements of Built Environment - which chief executive Brikho deems non-core.