Getting the builders in
DO as you would be done by. The Treasury has succeeded in applying the Private Finance Initiative to itself, or rather to its impractical building. A new company called Exchequer Partnership — the partners are Bovis the builders, Stanhope the developers, and Chestertons the managers — will move into the back half and rebuild it. Then the Treasury will move back in, paying rent and service charges to Exchequer, which will go on to rebuild the front half. To finance this, Warburgs has placed £128 million of indexed-linked bonds, which yield about 1.5 per cent more than the Treasury pays when it borrows money on its own account. This seems a roundabout way to proceed but the mandarins will be proud of it. They have been chafing in those labyrinthine corridors for years. There were no takers for their plan to relaunch the building as a luxury hotel, and a couple of promising fires fizzled out before it could burn down. (Too much damp in the basement.) I like to see them using their Initiative.
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