As talks continued on Sunday morning Unite, the UK’s largest trade union, called for a public inquiry into what it called “reckless corporate irresponsibility”, including the conduct of directors.
Carillion, which is based in Wolverhampton, in the Midlands, and employs 43,000 staff, said it was still hopeful it could map out a future, involving its bank lenders swapping chunks of its £900m debt for shares. That plan would probably wipe out all existing shareholders.
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The company derives £1.7bn – about a third of its revenue – from public sector contracts and public private partnerships. These include providing school dinners, cleaning and catering at NHS hospitals, construction work on rail projects such as HS2 and maintaining 50,000 army base homes for the Ministry of Defence.
Carillion is understood to be keen for the government to provide guarantees on some of its public sector contracts to give lenders the confidence to keep backing the company.
The men in suits will all be fine.