FINANCE

Treasury in dark as PFI firms ratchet up £2.2bn equity profits

HM Treasury’s ‘inadequate’ monitoring of trading in Public Finance Initiative (PFI) debt has allowed banks and builders to ratchet up £2.2bn in undetected profits, an industry analyst has claimed.

There are about 920 PFI projects in the UK with a capital value of £72.3bn, of which 720 are operational. A report by Dexter Whitfield from think tank the European Services Strategy Unit alleges few PFI projects would have received approval if average subsequent profits of 50.6% had been taken into account at the evaluation stage.

Entitled The £10bn Sale of Shares in PPP companies, the report reveals the Barnet hospital PFI project was subject to five later transactions and the Calderdale hospital scheme was sold nine times between 2002 - 2010.

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