Subcontractors owed large sums by failed contractor Ballast are continuing to join forces in an attempt to recover their money.
Last week Building revealed that several subcontractors in the North-west were considering setting up a consortium to lobby Ballast's administrator, Deloitte & Touche.

Subcontractors in southern England are now thinking along the same lines and have provisionally agreed to share legal costs. They include M&E engineer BTT Group, which estimates that a subsidiary is owed £500,000.

Deloitte is continuing its attempts to sell the rest of Ballast, which was put into administration last month when its Dutch parent Ballast Nedam pulled the plug on the company.

Last week Deloitte & Touche sold several contracts from Ballast's southern construction division to Botes.

Ballast Nedam has also asked Botes to complete the construction work on an £88.5m Tower Hamlets project – one of three PFI projects the Dutch company guaranteed following the collapse of its UK arm.

It is also rumoured that Ballast Nedam has offered Botes the chance to buy its equity stake in the project.

The proposed sale of Ballast's PFI and facilities management arm has collapsed, leaving seven FM contracts up for sale. Costain and Wates are said to be interested.

Deloitte administrator Nick Edwards said: "We are continuing to have discussions with a number of interested parties to secure a sale or transition of these [FM] contracts.

"However, as a result of funding constraints, about 20 redundancies have been made, but mainly at senior management level, not staff providing ongoing operational services under services contracts."

Contractor YJL has also replaced Ballast on a £17m PFI police project in Gloucester.

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