Carillion's Banks Urge U.K. to Step In to Ease Crisis, FT Says

Lenders to Carillion Plc have urged the U.K. government to step in to save the debt-ridden builder, brushing off the company’s own rescue plan, according to the Financial Times.

Some banks want the government to guarantee the company’s debt, the FT reported. Their call for reassurance comes after a group coordinated by Barclays Plc, Banco Santander SA, Lloyds Banking Group Plc, Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc and HSBC Holdings Plc said the company’s own rescue effort is “too optimistic,” the newspaper said citing people familiar with the matter. Carillion on Friday denied that a business plan submitted to creditors on Wednesday had been rejected.

The British government is making contingency plans for Carillion’s public projects should the company founder, the prime minister’s office said Friday. The builder, whose shares have plummeted after it issued three profit warnings in six months last year, employs about 43,000 people globally and gets three-fourth of its revenue from the U.K.

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Carillion shares fell 37 percent in the past two days, after rising at the start of the week on optimism about the latest business plan. The government is “monitoring the situation closely” and is in contact with Carillion’s management team, Prime Minister Theresa May’s spokesman Max Blain told reporters Friday.

The fate of the builder is sensitive for the government because Carillion is a supplier to several departments, with projects that involve building roads, libraries and hospitals, as well as the HS2 high-speed rail link.

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