The Government plans to dispose of about £16bn of assets before 2014 as it attempts to shore up its crumbling finances, and the new appointments aim to ensure the Government realises as much capital as possible from the divestments. The appointments were revealed in the Building Britain's Futuredocument released last month. Government borrowing has snowballed after public money was used to shore up banks balance sheets in the midst of the credit crisis. The recession has also decimated tax receipts at the same time as jobless claims are rising. In June, Britain had a £13bn deficit, the most for the month since records began in 1993. The scale of borrowing has led to claims that Gordon Brown has been misleading voters by denying that significant spending cuts are inevitable after the next general election. If the Prime Minister does not formulate a "credible" plan to narrow the ballooning deficit he is risking a run on the pound, the International Monetary Fund recently warned. Mr Grimstone is chairman of Candover Investments and Standard Life, but was formerly an assistant secretary at the Treasury. Lord Carter is a Labour peer who has advised the Government on a range of issues and chaired a number of government reviews, including a study of payroll services and the procurement of legal aid. In 1985, he founded Westminster Health Care which he then sold in 1999. He also served on the Treasury's productivity panel. The role of the Shareholder Executive board is to advise departments on making the best use of their property assets, identify further surplus assets and assist with overall portfolio coordination across the wider public sector. It also acts as a source of expertise in formulating and appraising disposal commitments, alternative financing options and incentive structures, and will support complex land and property transactions. It also advises ministers on governance, board appointments and remuneration. The Shareholder Executive was created in September 2003 and currently has a portfolio of 26 businesses in which the Government has a shareholding, including BNFL, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, Northern Rock, the Met Office, Royal Mail and Channel 4. It is part of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, and the businesses it is involved with have an annual turnover of around £24bn, almost 2pc of the UK's GDP. The current non-executive chairman of the Shareholder Executive is Philip Remnant, a senior advisor of Credit Suisse's European investment banking division, with Stephen Lovegrove, an ex-head of the European media team at Deutsche Bank, in the chief executive role. Details of the assets that will be sold are yet to be released, but Liam Byrne, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury said last week that the disposals will be of "fixed assets" in response to a written question from Labour MP Gordon Prentice.UK government plans £16bn asset sale
The board of the Shareholder Executive, which is responsible for managing the Government's investments in property and businesses, is to be strengthened by the appointment of Gerry Grimstone and Lord Carter of Coles.
Sunday, 26 July 2009
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