Carlyle Interested in BAE's Shipbuilding Unit, Telegraph Says
July 25 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. buyout firm Carlyle Group, whose senior advisers have included former President George H.W. Bush, has expressed interest in buying BAE Systems Plc's shipbuilding business, the Sunday Telegraph reported, without citing sources.
The paper said Carlyle hasn't decided if an offer would include BAE's submarine operations at Barrow-in-Furness, England, and the sale of Britain's only submarine business to a foreign company may be politically sensitive.
BAE's Chief Executive Mike Turner said July 12 that Europe's largest weapons maker is in talks with several ``interested parties'' about selling its unprofitable shipbuilding unit, which makes Type 45 destroyers and Astute submarines. The company hasn't yet outlined what assets would be included in a sale.
Any bidder for Barrow would compete with DML, which runs the Devonport Royal Dockyard, and is 51 percent owned by Halliburton Co., the oilfield contractor led by Vice President Dick Cheney before he returned to politics in 2000, the paper said. The U.K.'s VT Group Plc has also said it's interested in BAE's shipbuilding yards in Barrow and Glasgow, Scotland.
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From The Sunday Times
Snip
David Leppard and Robert Winnett
BRITAIN’S biggest defence company has been accused by a whistleblower of operating a £60m “slush fund” to channel “bribes” to members of Saudi Arabia’s royal family. BAE Systems now faces a criminal investigation over allegations that it used Peter Gardiner, a reputable travel agent from St Albans, Hertfordshire, to lavish its Saudi clients with gifts and luxury holidays.
Gardiner has given details of the payments in interviews with the Serious Fraud Office (SFO). Speaking publicly for the first time, he told The Sunday Times that he had spent £60m on BAE’s behalf. “It was an enormous amount of money. It’s more a question of what we didn’t spend it on than what we did,” said Gardiner.
The slush fund — spent by Gardiner over 13 years from 1989 and 2002 — provided a £170,000 Rolls-Royce, other luxury cars, London apartments, private air travel and accommodation in five-star hotels in Hawaii, Los Angeles, Paris and New York. Under separate arrangements, middlemen also arranged prostitutes for some dignitaries.
The largesse was extended to Saudi officials and members of the country’s large royal family who controlled the kingdom’s arms procurement, the chief source of BAE’s income over the past 18 years.
From:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1190953,00.htmlThe defence firm and the slush fund
Robert Winnett and David Leppard
FOR the Saudi princes and princesses it was just another luxury trip to the paradise island of Oahu in Hawaii. Under the shadow of Diamond Head, the island’s volcano, they enjoyed the run of one of the world’s best hotels while spending thousands in gourmet restaurants and designer boutiques.
The party of 50 people checked into its usual floor of suites at the Kahala Mandarin Oriental hotel. It has its own dolphins in a private blue lagoon, spas and “beach butlers” to provide face sprays, cooling drinks and sunshades. They hired a fleet of cars and after a few days travelled in a private Boeing 707 to another Hawaiian island, Maui, to stay at the five-star Grand Wailea hotel. The total cost of the trip in August 1998 was more than £250,000, including £25,000 on car hire.
For the Saudis, such holidays are part of the trappings of their royal status and influence in the oil-rich desert kingdom. But the trip to Oahu and similar jaunts are now attracting the attention of Britain’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO).
This weekend, details of the trip and others funded by BAE Systems, Britain’s biggest defence company, have been disclosed by a whistleblower to The Sunday Times.
More:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,176-1190346,0 ...
BAE probed on £60m Saudi slush fund
From The Sunday Times
Snip
David Leppard and Robert Winnett
BRITAIN’S biggest defence company has been accused by a whistleblower of operating a £60m “slush fund” to channel “bribes” to members of Saudi Arabia’s royal family. BAE Systems now faces a criminal investigation over allegations that it used Peter Gardiner, a reputable travel agent from St Albans, Hertfordshire, to lavish its Saudi clients with gifts and luxury holidays.
Gardiner has given details of the payments in interviews with the Serious Fraud Office (SFO). Speaking publicly for the first time, he told The Sunday Times that he had spent £60m on BAE’s behalf. “It was an enormous amount of money. It’s more a question of what we didn’t spend it on than what we did,” said Gardiner.
The slush fund — spent by Gardiner over 13 years from 1989 and 2002 — provided a £170,000 Rolls-Royce, other luxury cars, London apartments, private air travel and accommodation in five-star hotels in Hawaii, Los Angeles, Paris and New York. Under separate arrangements, middlemen also arranged prostitutes for some dignitaries.
The largesse was extended to Saudi officials and members of the country’s large royal family who controlled the kingdom’s arms procurement, the chief source of BAE’s income over the past 18 years.
From:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1190953,00.html
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