Carillion sells equity in Aspire Defence Limited

7 Dec 09

Carillion has today announced that it has sold a 32.5% financial interest in Aspire Defence Limited to Innisfree, an institutional investor, leaving Carillion with a 17.5% interest going forward. It is in the normal course of the Carillion business model to sell equity once projects in which they have invested reach a certain level of maturity. It then uses this money to make investments elsewhere. In other words they ‘re-cycle’ their equity and that is what they have done here.

The purchaser of the equity, Innisfree, has a wide portfolio of PFI investments including other projects with the MoD. For example they are the majority shareholder in the MoD Main Building PFI in Whitehall and as part of this deal with Carillion they are also buying shares in the operation of the GCHQ building at Cheltenham. Innisfree’s policy and track record is that once invested in a PFI business they hold that investment over the long term. They are therefore commited to ensuring the long term success of Aspire Defence. It is not anticipated that this share sale will have any material impact on the running of Aspire Defence.

HSBC will retain their 5% shareholding.

The 50:50 Carillion/KBR ownership of Aspire Defence Services and Aspire Defence Capital Works is unaffected by this transaction.

The changes have been fully briefed to our customer, the MoD, and they are entirely content with the new shareholdings.

Peter Smart
Chief Executive
Aspire Defence Limited