Catalyst Lend Lease preferred bidder on £2.4bn Birmingham BSF deal

Catalyst Lend Lease (CLL) has trounced property company Trillium to become preferred bidder on the coveted £2.4bn Birmingham Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme.

The scheme is the largest BSF project. The project involves rebuilding or refurbishing all 76 secondary schools and 6 secondary special schools in Birmingham over the next decade.

The programme runs over six phases. The first phase, worth £140m, will see ten sites redeveloped.

This is CLL’s second major BSF deal. The consortium also clinched the £250m Lancashire BSF scheme, closing it in July last year.

The race to win the Birmingham BSF deal has been arduous and dogged with eleventh hour delays. A preferred bidder was due to be announced in December but stalled after council officials, concerned at the international banking crisis, insisted Trillium and CLL provide further evidence they could stump up enough PFI funding for the deal.

A new date was set for early January but was once again delayed until today.

CLL was favourite to win the scheme after its rival Trillium pulled out of the PFI market last month, following its sale to Telereal by Land Securities. The move saw Trillium withdraw from bidding for the £450m Somerset scheme last week, leaving the field to rivals BAM and Sir Robert McAlpine.

Trillium chairman Ian Ellis insisted at the time that the firm was committed to bidding for the Birmingham BSF. The firm retains a prominent role in BSF as the preferred bidder on the £1.8bn Kent scheme.