Earlier this week it was brought to my attention that the MoD have just sold off their remaining 19% stake in Qinetiq for £257.3 million. They have however kept their golden share which prevents the company falling into foreign hands.The government has sold its remaining 19 per cent stake in the defence firm QinetiQ for £257.3 million but will retain control of the company through a 'golden share'.The MoD have always intended to sell these shares but the timing is rather interesting because an announcement about the outcome of the Defence Training Review (DTR) is expected later this month. You might recall from some of my earlier posts that the preferred bidder for DTR is the Metrix consortium which includes Qinetiq.
The Ministry of Defence has sold all its remaining 125 million shares at 206p per share to several institutions, taking advantage of a recent surge in QinetiQ's stock.
Qinetiq was formed in 1991 from part of the in house Defence Evaluation and Research Agency (DERA). At this time 31% of the shares were sold to the the Carlyle group with the intention of eventually floating the firm. The government received a lot of criticism when the firm was eventually floated in 1996.
When QinetiQ was floated on the London Stock Exchange in 1996, the government was criticised when it became clear that the Carlyle Group and several senior civil servants had profited hugely from their shares.For those of you who like number crunching, more details can be found in the Financial Times here and here. Or if you are interested in the outcome of the report on the controversy surrounding the original sell off that can be found here.
In addition, the initial public offering (IPO) was only available to institutional investors, excluding the general public.
Tomas Carruthers, chief executive of Interactive Investor, criticised the deal: "Once again the private investor - that's you and me - is treated with utter contempt.
6 comments:
Do you have many esteemed readers within the MoD, Mylady?
THere is one line in the whole posts that makes my blood boil abve everything else "several senior civil servants had profited hugely from their shares". Another case of the fat cats lining theiir pockets whil the poor bloody infantry bend over and take another inch.
Well, you have to look after your own, I mean - 'K's don't cut it anyomre, not when any old Tom, Dick or Actor can get one.
Sean - Not here I don't but I do elsewhere ;-)
Jams - These things make my blood boil too. I have to blog about them to get them out of my system!
Aileni - Not good is it?
I don't blog about work for several reasons:
My job is boring (Government finance);
THe department I work for has got plenty enough kicking over the last couple of years
I don't want a doocing!
Jams - I can't say I blame you for not blogging about work. I don't say much about my work place either and the people I mention know about the posts and are happy with them.
Thankfully this isn't my workplace that I am commenting on here. My comment to Sean is about an information site that I do for PCS in my area, it is a bit like the main PCS site and it is all public domain information. Or campaign activities that we have been involved in! A lot of the government departments access it.
That of course doesn't necessarily mean it will be approved of by everyone.
Post a Comment