Birmingham Friends of the Earth West Midlands Transport Campaign

Kvaerner Sells Infrastructure Investment Businesses

Kvaerner, the Anglo-Norwegian engineering and construction Group, today announced that it has agreed to sell Kvaerner Corporate Development Limited and Kvaerner Investments Limited. The sale will provide Kvaerner with total cash proceeds of US$123 million, and an accounting gain of approximately US$10 million.

Kvaerner Corporate Development and Kvaerner Investments are engaged in the development and financing of infrastructure projects world-wide, including projects such as: the A1/M1 link road in Yorkshire, in the UK; the Birmingham Northern Relief Road, which will be Britain's first privately financed toll motorway; and the privately financed Tagus Crossing in Lisbon, Portugal.

The sale is a consequence of the current restructuring within Kvaerner, announced in April. The Group does not in the future intend to be a major investor in infrastructure projects, but will continue to take the role of a major contractor through its engineering and construction activities.

The sale is subject to various consents from concession awarders, shareholders, and necessary regulatory approvals. The buyer is Macquarie European Infrastructure Limited, a wholly owned UK subsidiary of the Infrastructure Trust of Australia Group, in co-operation with Pacific Energy Limited, a listed Australian company in which Kvaerner, until now, has held a 23 per cent ownership share. That shareholding is being sold as part of this transaction for US$5 million. One of Kvaerner's senior managers, John Fletcher, is also a shareholder and a director of Pacific Energy, and is therefore party to the transaction. Mr Fletcher will be leaving the Kvaerner Group by the end of the year.

Following this sale, Kvaerner has so far this year sold non-core businesses and assets for a total consideration of approximately US$380 million, producing a book gain of US$55 million, excluding shipbuilding disposals. The Group is now well underway to achieving its objective of raising US$450 million in proceeds from non-core business disposals by the end of 1999.

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(please note, new telephone number above from TODAY - 19 Jul 99

Kvaerner's London headquarters has now moved to: