Lower Thames Crossing Vendor Due Diligence - Business Readiness Assessment

The supplier is deeply embedded in the project, with unparalleled expertise built up over years; The supplier is fully onboarded and have undertaken significant work across the years as part of the Lower Thames Crossing (LTC) programme.

The continuity of service across the preparatory and Vendor Due Diligence (VDD) workstreams would enable the current advisors to leverage the significant work done to date by Department for Transport (DfT) , National Highways (NH) and their organisations in order to offer a higher quality output, likely in less time, and with less friction – ultimately driving better value for money vs a new advisor

Additionally, bringing on new firms to provide the VDD reports when preparatory work has been undertaken by other advisors will almost certainly necessitate replication of scope in order for the incoming parties to get comfortable with the current status, duplicating the work already undertaken and billed at this stage and creating the opportunity for unhelpful divergences in position

While other “big four” advisors have internal capabilities to meet the requirements formally, the current advisor group has been significantly specialised by virtue of their experience to date on LTC that they are uniquely qualified to meet the scope from a Finance, Tax, ESG and Operations perspective, rendering any broader process ultimately uncompetitive

Additionally, there are strategic benefits to limiting the number of teams and organisations already managing internal conflicts with the project and avoiding ‘saturating’ the market, to ensure that investors, lenders and all relevant parties are able to access the advisors they need quickly and without undue complications as part of a smooth and functional transaction process.

If the incumbent advisors are not appointed for this process, they are highly likely to represent a counterparty on the transaction, who could reap the benefits of their significant experience rather than LTC; there is a strong case for preserving this knowledge internally

The proposed VDD report scopes do not represent new independent scopes which are a departure from the work done to date. Significant pre readiness activity has been undertaken, and this is a build on such work.