Tartan bid loses out to US giant Scots consortium still hoping for

0 Comments | Sunday Herald, The, May 1, 2005 | by Steven Vass

THE Scottish consortium bidding for the pounds-10 million media and conferencing contracts for the upcoming G8 summit at Gleneagles has been defeated by a rival American bidder.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) is expected to announce early this week that the contracts are being awarded to Jack Morton Worldwide, a New York-based conferencing and marketing multinational. Jack Morton's previous conferencing contracts include the Athens Olympics last year and earlier G8 and G7 summits.

The Scottish consortium, which was fronted by Perthshire-based Speakeasy Productions and included SMG and BT, is thought to have come second or third out of five in the procurement process. The consortium also included Dutch structures giant De Boers and Leedsbased staging company Stage One.

The partners are going to London on Tuesday to be told why they lost their bid relating to the three-day July summit, which is expected to generate about pounds-1 billion in total for the Scottish economy.

Jim Adamson, managing director of Speakeasy, expressed his disappointment at not being selected for the contract, despite working closely with Scottish Enterprise Tayside throughout the process.

He said: "Whilst we thought that being the Scottish consortium might help in our winning, when you think about it rationally there is no reason why it should be."

The decision by the FCO has caused controversy among some Scottish politicians, who feel that the contracts should have been awarded locally.

Pete Wishart, the former SNP MP for North Tayside, told the Sunday Herald: "I am bitterly disappointed that Speakeasy has lost this particular contract.

"We got a very clear indication that the FCO would look favourably on local companies bidding. Speakeasy was encouraged to put in a bid and was supported in the process."

Certain Labour MSPs are also thought to be frustrated with the result, but they were not willing to speak out so close to the election.

The contracts are broken into two lots. The first covers setting up and managing the conferencing facilities and building media centres for over 3000 journalists who will attend the summit from all over the world.

Lot two concerns broadcasting, broken down into television and radio transmissions.

In spite of the Scots not winning, it is understood that the FCO selected Jack Morton partly on the basis of its willingness to subcontract elements of the work to local companies.

The Sunday Herald understands that SMG and Speakeasy are among the companies now negotiating to become subcontractors. This may yet mean that they end up gaining significant revenues from the contract.

David Reilly, managing director of SMG Broadcast and Event Solutions, said: "We had never bid for anything as large as that before. We are in discussions with suppliers just now, so we don't think the whole contract is gone."

A spokesman for the FCO said the contracts were awarded on the basis of procurement regulations that include requirements about taking local subcontracting into account.

He said: "The Scottish companies will certainly be involved. When the overall announcement is made, I believe the winner will say how much sub-contracting will be local."

He also rejected suggestions that the FCO had gone against its earlier advice to bidders and awarded the contract to Jack Morton purely on the basis of costs.

The contracts are the first of a number of major pieces of work being awarded in the run-up to the summit. Others include catering, translation booths, accommodation and transport, the latter of which has also been decided and will be the next to be announced.

In a separate development, SMG has been appointed host broadcaster for the Shetland Island Games. The event, sponsored by Royal Bank of Scotland subsidiary NatWest, is also taking place in July, and will involve 2500 athletes from 24 islands around the world.