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UK: MAPELEY BRINGS IN MORGAN STANLEY TO BEEF UP PFI TEAM.1
Property Week
21 Jan 2000
Mapeley, The George Soros-backed consortium set up to bid for the �2bn Inland Revenue and Customs & Excise estate, is gearing up for a big push into corporate outsourcing.
Headed by former banker Robin Priest, the group this week appointed Morgan Stanley Dean Witter as financial adviser to beef up its team.
The US bank, which is also in advanced negotiations to take an equity stake in the group, joins Mapeley's other backers, Soros Real Estate Partners and Fortress Investment.
Morgan Stanley was unwilling to comment on the move, but a well-placed source revealed that the bank would become a shareholder before summer. After this, said the source, 'Mapeley will go for everything big with the PFI prefix'.
The government is expected to release details of the next major PFI project in the autumn - the transfer of the Department for Education & Employment office portfolio.
It is understood that the project is already on Mapeley's hit list.
With its new backing, Mapeley is also planning to encroach on the ever-fashionable corporate outsourcing arena, in which a company transfers its properties and the facilities management to a third party. This will put Mapeley in competition with Citex, backed by DLJ; Trillium, backed by Goldman Sachs; and Servus, backed by Nomura.
The latter two are also shortlisted for the Inland Revenue project.
The name Mapeley is not new in the PFI arena. In 1997, the group came second in the race to win control of the giant DSS portfolio. Mapeley was owned by Nations Bank and its bid was fronted by Priest, then securitisation managing director.
After spending an estimated �5m on the bid, the bank vowed never to get involved in PFI projects again. Shortly after, Priest left to join the Industrial Bank of Japan. But, desperate for another PFI fix, he left to resurrect Mapeley with its current backers.
By Clayton Hirst.
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