Nuclear services sale

BNFL has recently agreed to sell its specialist nuclear services business, Project Services, to VT Group, the Southampton-based defence and support services company.

The transaction is expected to be completed early in 2009.

‘I am delighted that VT Group will be the new owners of Project Services as this achieves our objective of securing a good home for the business,’ said Mike Parker, BNFL’s group chief executive officer.

‘The sale has generated additional value for our shareholder over and above the £8.3bn that BNFL has already returned to the government.’

Project Services employs about 750 staff with experience across nuclear waste and decommissioning, reprocessing technology and design of new nuclear facilities.

In its first two years of operation, the business secured work on civil nuclear sites in the UK, including Sellafield and Magnox reactor sites, and is also involved in work on behalf of the Ministry of Defence, Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform and the Home Office.

Similarly, the international nuclear services market presents the business with major growth opportunities.

The company has already obtained a strategic foothold working for EDF in France, Rosatom in Russia and Japan Nuclear Fuels.