Macquarie to Boost U.K. Green Bank After $3 Billion Purchase
April 20, 2017
By Paul Homewood
Keen to invest in Swansea Tidal Lagoon, eh?
I wonder if there have been any nods or winks.
Meanwhile, Macquarie stands to benefit from the obscene subsidies we are paying out to renewable energy projects.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
As a Macquarie shareholder I have huge confidence in their investment judgement. They’re highly competent and very nimble. The Swansea Bay project may well be a failure but you can be pretty sure Macquarie will find a way to make at least some money out of it.
Additionally, when they say “We’re strong believers in the technology” that’s code for “We want other equity investors to come along and share the risk”.
“The Swansea Bay project may well be a failure but you can be pretty sure Macquarie will find a way to make at least some money out of it.”
Oh yes, I’m sure they’ll be able to milk millions in subsidies out of the British taxpayers and energy users.
I’m sure you’re right: they made a small fortune out of the now bankrupt Midlands Expressway, a.k.a. M6 toll. They paid themselves some very large dividends (£392m in 2006) and left the banking consortium holding the debt baby. It’s a trick they’ve repeated elsewhere, too:
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/macquarie-in-tax-row-vmpbhwm9c09
The part of the story that disturbed me was :-
-“A third “green infrastructure platform” will be backed by the U.K. government and will allow the government to retain ownership of “a pool of assets,” such as in bioenergy and waste to energy, said Dooley.”-
And the reason that it does is because the story was also run on Jonova’s site by the commenter “Pat” . That comment included the information that in 101/2 months the GIB had lost 6.2Million pounds from 3 billion from the UK govt, suggesting that either the managers were somewhat incompetent or that the green investments were intrinsically commercially unsafe . It is worrying that the present Govt ( and the Dept to be run by Caroline Lucas in 49 days time) are adding to that insecure loan .
Coming at a time when all medical and social services have never been under a greater financial strain, to the real distress of many , these decisions about investment should surely be more openly discussed.
Caroline Lucas can’t run anything more complex than a bathroom mixer tap.
AlecM,
Really? I have it on good authority that Caroline passed the UK Government’s Basic Cognitive Test* with flying backhanders.
*this test is the British version of the ‘US Government (Gerald Ford) cognitive ability test – walking and chewing’.
The British version involves functionaries displaying their ability at walking while grasping at overstuffed brown envelopes.
AlecM — I confess to having trouble with mine occasionally so that’s maybe not a good example!
A passing VASTLY subsidised gravy train is almost irresistible to these bankster gangsters.
So what do you do when you’re offered a free lunch?
Start your diet a day later?
As I obviously have far higher morals than you, I turn it down if it adversely affects anyone else.
Which is why I have not installed Solar Energy, or have taken advantage of any other Tax Payer involved Cash.
Remember the Government does NOT have any money.
There is a danger that Swansea will be rushed through ahead of the election under parliamentary “wash-up” procedures. We got bad energy policy the same way before: Ed Miliband’s 2010 Energy Act that requires OFGEM to act in green interests, not those of consumers. We wait to see what the manifesto will say about energy (well, let’s face it, only the Tory manifesto will count). Is there any hope for some chink of light on a more sensible energy policy?
That will depend on whether anyone in a position to be taken seriously has the ear of those who will be deciding on the manifesto.
I do believe that this government is the best chance in some while to persuade ministers to change course but they need to be given cogent arguments by people without an apparent axe to grind. It is also essential to find out and use whatever it is that drives the decision makers — and glib remarks about simply being in it for what they can get out of it will not do the trick.
May is not stupid nor is she malicious (except perhaps to the likes of George Osborne). She has made a convincing pitch about being on the side of ordinary people and I believe she means it, even if she doesn’t necessarily make the “right” decisions as a result. Which means she thinks Hinkley Point is the right decision. We all think it’s a wrong decision. So who and how do we need to convince that we are right and she is wrong?