The company referred to by the Deputy has been a 50% shareholder in Inspiredspaces, the special purpose vehicle, SPV, responsible for the construction, finance, operation and maintenance of the public private partnership, PPP, schools bundle 5 programme.
The National Development Finance Agency (NDFA) managed the procurement of the schools bundle 5 PPP Programme on behalf of my Department. As part of this process, the NDFA carried out technical, legal and financial due diligence of the PPP documentation, the PPP company consortium and its members, including the company referred to, and their guarantor. The financial due diligence included a detailed review of the financial standing of the PPP Company's shareholders, consortium members and their guarantors which incorporated a review of their audited financial accounts and accompanying independent auditor’s report in addition to the proposed third party funding structure of the project.
This detailed due diligence did not raise any issues to preclude the award of preferred tenderer status to Inspiredspaces in November 2015 or subsequent contract award in July 2016.
Schuldschein bonds were not used to finance the schools bundle 5 PPP project.
