In 2014, UCV Plain Speaker reported that equity in the Calderdale Royal Hospital (CRH), which is notorious as one of the most costly and least accountable PFI schemes in the NHS, had changed hands 10 times, and that according to the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee, PFI equity sales are

“the unacceptable face of capitalism.”

On 19th January 2016, a big chunk of the Calderdale Royal Hospital PFI equity changed hands again,  for an undisclosed amount that you can be sure generated a tidy profit for the seller.

This at a time when Calderdale Royal Hospital was showing every sign of drowning under the burden of its Private Finance Initiative debt.

In Autumn 2015, the hospitals regulator Monitor had put the Calderdale & Huddersfield hospitals Trust under financial special measures because it was not cutting spending on hospital services fast enough to cut its “deficit” to the level the government’s quango required. The “deficit” was in fact the funding shortfall as a result of the government’s refusal to fund the NHS properly.

Monitor’s special measures included forcing the broke hospitals Trust to pay £500k to the management consultancy company EY to tell it how to cut its spending. This is money that could and should have gone on patient care.

In 2105 the hospitals Trust also paid Lendlease Consulting £53,502 to come up with an estates “reconfiguration” report that advised the Trust to reverse its preference for turning Calderdale Royal Hospital into a small planned care hospital for both Calderdale and Greater Huddersfield, and Huddersfield Royal Hospital into an acute and emergency hospital also for both areas, so that it is now the other way round.

This advice stood to profit the Calderdale Royal Hospital Special Purpose Vehicle company, for reasons made clear in the EY 5 Year Strategic Plan for the hospitals Trust.

And Lendlease Consulting- the provider of this advice – is part of the Lendlease group of companies that, at the time of the report, had a 50% share in the “ultimate parent undertaking” of the Calderdale Royal Hospital Special Purpose Vehicle, through its subsidiary Lendlease PFI/PPP Infrastructure Consolidated Investment Holdings Ltd.

It was Lendlease PFI/PPP Infrastructure Consolidated Investment Holdings Ltd that in January 2016 sold its 50% share in the “ultimate parent undertaking” of the Calderdale Royal Hospital Special Purpose Vehicle, Calderdale Hospital SPC Holdings Ltd.

The purchaser was UK fund manager Dalmore Capital.

Lendlease PFI/PPP Infrastructure Consolidated Investment Holdings Ltd had held the shares since 2010, when it bought them from Lendlease Corporation, at a profit to Lendlease Corporate of £12m, (part of a 14 project deal).

Details of UK fund manager Dalmore Capital’s acquisition are that it acquired Lendlease’s limited partner commitment in the Lend Lease PFI/PPP Infrastructure Fund, which is an offshore company based in Jersey. This Fund owns 19 “assets” including 50% of Consolidated Investment Holdings Limited – the “ultimate parent company” for the Calderdale Royal Hospital PFI Special Purpose Vehicle.

The other company that owns the rest of the  Limited Partner capital in the Lend Lease PFI/PPP Infrastructure Fund is the Dutch pension fund  PGGM.

The  Jersey Financial Services Commission website shows that on 2nd February 2017 the name of Lendlease PFI/PPP Infrastructure Consolidated Investment Holdings Ltd changed to Civis PFI/PPP infrastructure CIHL Holdings Ltd.

Dalmore Capital raises funds for its PFI/PPP equity acquisitions from pension companies,  so it’s quite possible your pension and mine will come from the profits Dalmore Capital generates from the costly PFI debt repayments CRH is forced to make, and from its eventual sale of the CRH PFI equity. Not to mention the profits from CRH exercising its break clause in year 30 which it has told the Huddersfield Examiner it will do.  I think this is in 2028 or thereabout.

There is something inherently insane in this financial system of robbing Peter to pay Paul.

The Shark header photo is by Ryan Espanto and is used under a Creative Commons 2.0 Licence. If anyone else wants to use it, you must also use this acknowledgement, with the live links, and observe the terms of the Licence