£1.5 billion of debt and a pension shortfall of £587 million. Absolutely shocking.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-42675427
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£1.5 billion of debt and a pension shortfall of £587 million. Absolutely shocking.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-42675427
Their CEO's basic pay increased from £790k to £1.5m in the five years he has been there and last March they paid out a record dividend on 18.4p a share. Part of the CEO's additional bonus was based on appointing a new Finance Director to improve leadership yet one year later they have unsustainable debts and a massive pension shortfall.Originally Posted by Auntie Andy
What I can't understand is that the government has a defined IT strategy of seeking to work with small to medium enterprises rather than giants like IBM and Accenture to lower dependency on high margin major businesses yet at the same time when it comes to infrastructure and outsourcing projects a large proportion of the work ends up with the same small number of companies.
Carillion may now be considered too big to fail and may need state intervention or if this is considered to be too risky politically then the impact will be most harshly felt on its workers and those in its pension fund.
It’s absolutely disgusting that this is continually allowed to happen. Capitalism stinks, the working man will once again be shafted and the rich walk away unscathed. But it’s OK just privatise everything and all will be OK.
What??? As pointed out earlier in the thread “Their CEO's basic pay increased from £790k to £1.5m in the five years he has been there and last March they paid out a record dividend on 18.4p a share. Part of the CEO's additional bonus was based on appointing a new Finance Director to improve leadership yet one year later they have unsustainable debts and a massive pension shortfall”.
Great!
To be fair to Mambo I think he was making a slightly different point that if Carillion's contract for HS2 let's say was taken into public ownership then the taxpayer could face an equal or greater bill by a combination of setting up the service and perhaps running it less efficiently so the cost is higher. I was highlighting the way that Carillion seemed to be rewarding its senior management and shareholders for what has turned out to be a failing company. You don't build up the level of debt and pension shortfall you highlight over a single financial year.
I don't buy the argument that a public sector body would have made the same loss. Carillion seems to have suffered through a combination of mismanagement by over-borrowing to support its over-rapid expansion via public sector contracts in a number of sectors, some of which they seem to have badly priced. Even at low interest rates it has to service the interest on that debt which it seems unable to manage.
Mambo mentions another company picking up the slack. I read that on HS2 which was won by a consortium including Carillion that the bid explicitly caters for the other winning tenderers covering the gap should one member drop out. It will be interesting to see how this pans out in practice. Carillion had released a major profits warning just before they were announced as one of the successful tenderers for HS2 by the Transport Department so don't be surprised to hear that Chris Grayling is on an overseas trip next week if Carillion goes belly-up.
Apologies for sounding aggressive, I don’t intend it at you. I just get so angry at the working man continually getting shafted.
This article details how Carillion bosses instead of looking after their company, staff and their pensions, instead protected their bonuses despite knowing the company was in trouble.
http://www.constructionenquirer.com/...ses-protected/
I pay into a pension scheme, I imagine most on here do. I pay tax, I imagine most on here do. The tax I pay goes to pay for projects like HS2, my pension contributions may well also get invested in a company like this. So I am potentially part-funding the CEO's payrise twice. He drives off into the sunset with his bags of dosh after doing a shitty job and my pittance pension takes another hit.
Does this really look like an example of a situation that doesn't affect the little people?
They seem to be doing a lot of government business.
They got 43 thousand employees, what type of wages are your mates are , are they likely to receive favourable pensions , got one chap nearby worker / engineer driving a lovely top end range rover ?
I think the bigger problem is the lack of competition to these huge contracts , governments are under huge pressure to get the cheapest British deal , aligned with penalties costs , that exclude smaller construction companies ,very worrying trend , its like the left are pushing inwards and the right are aware of failure and blame,perhaps a halt to HS2 , and major infrastructures could be a welcomed choice and just concentrate on hospital /school builds only.
I'm sure the government will be blamed for others inefficient decisions , however the lack of UK choice Is probably why they got into bed with Carillion , other than that its off shore companies , and we know what the press will say about that ,a s the per the outrage of the french /Chinese building nuclear plants.
You cant win
For the Times: 'Ministers dismissed warnings on failing firm Carillion' - but still handed out lucrative contracts to them.
Could the reason be that Carillion donates to the Tory party? If not, why give contracts to a failing business? Of course this government should be blamed.
Into liquidation
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-42687032
And guess what! It’s failure means “the government will have to provide funding to maintain the public services run by Carillion”.
Guess I was right.
They were never the same after Fish left them.....
HS2 has to be the biggest bollocks ever. I really can’t see how 10 mins difference in getting to London from Cardiff is worth all the money being spent on it
I don't know that depth of details relating to funding political parties, I do the workers unions fund other political parties .
If it wasn't them who in your view should have been handed the contract this size , there are very few companies about .
I'm no Tory ,but its too easy to blame Goverments, at least as its a private firm its shareholders and banks that get hurt not hefty tax paying subsidies , I'd jyst postpone the madness that us HS2 but they won't as tgey will get "we hate northerners " bleats , as I say you cant win .
Once again the pension commitement raises its ugly head as with steel workers have these benefits and wage scales been over egged and demanded, to the detriment of younger people looking now for job futures ,that's a better debate as it appears unsustainable.
I don’t have the answers as I am not an expert in this field. That’s what MP’s and their advisors are paid to do surely. What I do know though is that it stinks. This article adds to that.
https://www.theguardian.com/business...ns-of-millions
You have been doing an impeccable impersonation for a few months now.
There are many sides to these type of events and it seems to me only certain aspects can be debated .
It is all on the table.
What isn't being debated that you would like to?
Something that is not so narrow in view as blame Goverments for everything, it's such a weak answer.
But in this case the truthful answer
The thing that alarms me is how accepting people are of behaviour that harms others when it is engaged in by a person in power in the private sector. It is like a sliding scale - when an individual harms people they are prosecuted, when a public sector official harms people they are likely to face criticism and potential sanctions but when a private sector leader makes decisions that negatively affect millions of people they are practically untouchable. This is born from the idea that there are two different types of money, public money and private money. Manipulative nonsense of course but it helps to enable the bad eggs in the private sector from having to adhering to the same moral (and potentially legal) code as the rest of us. It also allows our dear leaders to tell us that the people of this country should have absolutely no say in what is deemed to be acceptable and unacceptable behaviour within the private sector – as long as they break no current laws then they didn’t do anything wrong (and any attempt to say – ‘hold on, we can always change the law’ is shouted down as extreme left rubbish). Unfortunately some companies have become as big as governments (unelected of course), so there is no escape, no choice and no competition. Could I (as a UK taxpayer) choose not to use Carrillion if I didn’t agree with their practice? No, my overlords in parliament have made that choice on my behalf and that is why the government have questions to answer!
Apparently the head of carillion was a Tory donor, and a personal advisor to Cameron and then May on corporate responsibility.
That went well, didn’t it. STINKS!
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