Balfour Beatty, the international engineering, construction, services and investment group, has announced that Gammon Capital, its PPP vehicle in South East Asia, has reached financial close for the new Institute of Technical Education (ITE) College West, the first accommodation based PPP in Singapore.

The project, Gammon's first in PPP, which has a contract period of 27 years and a capital value of approximately £100 million, is scheduled to be completed in 2010. Its first intake of students will be in July of that year.

Construction will be undertaken by Gammon Construction, in which, like Gammon Capital, Balfour Beatty has a 50% interest. Gammon Capital will also be responsible for long-term facilities management services to include mechanical and electrical maintenance, AV support, cleaning, landscape management, security, parking, environment and waste management and catering. Its FM partner will be United Premas, a subsidiary of United Group Services.

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Balfour Beatty Chief Executive Ian Tyler, said: "We are delighted to have reached financial close on ITE and play a key role in developing technical education in Singapore. Our acquisition of Balfour Beatty Communities has established a strong PPP position for us in the US. This is a further important step in our strategy of creating sustainable PPP businesses in selected geographic markets."

The new college is the second stage in ITE's plan to consolidate the existing 10 ITE Campuses into three Mega Campuses and follows the opening of ITE College East in January 2005. Under the "One ITE System, Three Colleges" education model, the new ITE College West is envisioned to be "An ITE College of Excellence for Service Quality" operating three key schools for Business and Services, Info-Communications Technology and Engineering.

(CD/JM)