BW lose £33 millions at Gloucester

FOLLOWING hot on the heels of the news of the £22 millions invested in the pub partnership with no profit over four years, we have discovered a further £33 millions has been 'invested' by BW—and written off!

BW has 'invested' a total of £33.1 millions in the Gloucester Quays Partnership over four years with absolutely no returns, leaving the  pub partnership disaster paling into insignificance.

Difficult to believe

Informing us of the figures, our Allan Richards writes that he still has difficulty in believing what happened!  Here are the figures of BW's investment:

• 2006/7 (£11.9m of which £7.8m was property at book value)
• 2007/8 (£1.8m)
• 2008/9 (£6.2)
• 2009/10 (£13.2m)

Total invested £33.1m!

BW's share of debt in the joint venture was £47.2m in 2008/9 and fell by £2.4m to £44.8m in 2009/10.

In 2008/9 BW invested £6.2m (see above) but they wrote it off at year end together with another £10.7m. In total they wrote off a staggering £16.9m of public money. So at the end of that year the investment was only worth £3.0m

And it gets worse!

Just to prove that they could throw good money after bad, last year they invested £13.2m and did the same again. They wrote if off! They also wrote off the remaining £3.0m left from the earlier investment.

So in four years BW has invested £33.1m of public money in a business which now has a 'fair value' (i.e. what they would get if they sold it) of zero. Indeed, bearing in mind the business has debts of £94.4m (BW's proportion is half—£47.2m) they would probably have to pay someone to take it off them as they will have to pump public money into it to keep it afloat.

Never produce a profit

In short BW has lost £33.1 of public money. Gloucester Quays has never produced a profit and is never expected to. Public money will continue to be used to prop it up.

Boaters must wonder just how much the £22 millions lost in the pub partnership, and the £33 millions lost in the Gloucester Quays débâcle would have done for the waterways maintenance...

Time for a complete change?