BNFL Agrees Deal To Sell Project Services

VT Group said yesterday the acquisition is scheduled to be completed in January 2008 for an initial GBP 45 million. There is also a results-based component to the agreement, with an additional payment of up to GBP 30 million based on profitability for the year ending 31 March 2008. This could make the sale worth up to GBP 75 million.

Mike Parker, chief executive officer of BNFL Group, said the sale achieves BNFL’s objective of “securing a good home for the business and, importantly, its people”.

Project Services employs around 750 staff with experience across nuclear waste and decommissioning, reprocessing technology and design of new nuclear facilities. In its first two years of operation the business has secured work on civil nuclear sites in the UK, including Sellafield and Magnox reactor sites, and is also involved in work on behalf of the Ministry of Defence, Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform and the Home Office.

BNFL said the international nuclear services market presents Project Services with “a major growth opportunity”. The company has already obtained “a strategic foothold” working for EDF in France, the Federal Atomic Energy Agency (Rosatom) in Russia, and Japan Nuclear Fuels Ltd.

VT Group said in a statement the Project Services business had a turnover of GBP 86.9 million in the financial year to March 2007, with profits before tax of GBP 8.4 million.

VT Group chief executive Paul Lester said the acquisition provides VT with entry to a new market. “The market for nuclear decommissioning in the UK alone is currently worth around GBP 1 billion per year, of which a significant part is available to Project Services,” he said.

In 2006, BNFL announced plans to break up and sell off British Nuclear Group, of which Project Services was a part.