The £81m acquisition of beleaguered support services group Amey by Spanish construction giant Ferrovial has been approved by the European Union, although the deal is still not complete
The EU said that the acquisition would not break its competition rules, even though Ferrovial had still not received the 90% approval it required from Amey shareholders.

Ferrovial originally stated that it wanted the 90% approval by 16 May, but only received 77% by this date. It granted a one-week extension and warned that it would pull out of the deal if it did not get the extra 13% of approvals by the 23 May.

The company has back-tracked on this statement and granted a further one-week deadline, as it is only 1.5% short of its target. A major shareholder for Amey said: "It's a pain in the arse getting that last 1.5%, trawling through all the shareholders to return their forms."

On Tuesday this week, Amey completed the sale of its engineering consulting subsidiary Amey Vectra to investment firm Volvere for £2m.