Bandit Capitalism: Carillion and the Corruption of the British State

Description

The collapse in January 2018 of the construction giant Carillion, outsourcer of huge Government building contracts, is one of the great financial scandals of modern times. When it folded it had only GBP29 million in the bank and debts and other liabilities adding up to a staggering GBP7 billion. When the total losses were counted it was established that the banks were owed GBP1.3 billion in loans and that there was a hole in the pension fund of GBP2.6 billion. That left British taxpayers picking up the tab to salvage the pensions owed to Carillion workers. On one level, this is a familiar story of directors who systematically looted a company with the aim of their own enrichment. But in a wider context the Carillion catastrophe exposes everything that is wrong about the state we are in now - the free-for-all of company laws which govern directors' dealings, the toothless regulators, the crime and very little punishment of the Big Four auditors, and a government which is a prisoner of a broken model born of a political ideology which it cannot forsake. Through the story of Carillion, Bob Wylie exposes the lawlessness of contemporary capitalism that is facilitated by hapless politicians, and gives a warning for the future that must be heeded. Bandit Capitalism charts, in jaw-dropping detail, the rise and rise of the British Oligarchy.

Bob Wylie is well-known for his 14 years with BBC Scotland as a news correspondent. More recently he was the chief of staff and senior advisor to the Leader of Glasgow City Council, for almost two years. Then for a similar time he was the media director with the Unite union in Scotland. He is now runs his own media consultancy, which frequently delivers on trade union projects, including work with the GMB.

'An excoriating book on the corruption that can lurk within contemporary capitalism. Wylie focuses on the case of now-bankrupt Carillion, which was a giant provider of outsourced services to the UK government. This company was looted by management, at the expense of taxpayers and workers. But, he stresses, Carillion is merely an extreme example of corporate malfeasance. When management is expected to run companies for the purpose of enriching themselves, trouble is sure to ensue. It did and it does' -- Martin Wolf * Financial Times 'Best books of 2020' * 'Timely... highlights Carillion's dreadful treatment of its supply chain' -- Rudi Klein * Building.co.uk * 'A whodunnit without that being a mystery at all. ... Says much about the current state of affairs in the UK' * Scottish Review * 'Comparable with Michael Lewis' The Big Short or indeed Ian Fraser's Shredded, Bob Wylie has done a forensic job. It is a powerful book but above all principled... you will be hopping mad that the wider media did not cover [this story] to the degree that it should have. Highly recommended, a really good read' -- Eamonn O'Neill * TalkMedia Podcast * 'Powerful investigative journalism and an engagingly written narrative make this a gripping read. If only it were fiction. The book's legacy must be lessons learned from Carillion as a blueprint for a radical overhaul of corporate governance and doing business in the post Covid pandemic new world order' -- Stephen Woodward * Resolex * 'It is riveting reading... Brilliant... You have made a complex issue accessible to the masses' -- Professor Prem Sikka, University of Sheffield 'Bob Wylie has produced, I think, the book of the year...Bob Wylie has done a service to humanity in writing this book' -- George Galloway 'Bob Wylie takes no prisons in his account of the scandal over the collapse of outsourcing company Carillion. It makes for a ripping read' * Sceptical.scot * 'For sheer shame to the business establishment, the Carillion implosion might take the crown. For the scale of "blunder and plunder", as Bob Wylie puts it, the downfall of the construction and facilities management group has few equals' * The Times * 'Details, like a mini-series in print, the collapse of the giant construction and outsourcing company Carillion. There are villains aplenty in this tale of the company which was systematically looted by its management, though few heroes. The old saw that it's a real page-turner is true' * Herald on Sunday * 'Masterful storytelling, engaging, supported by evidence and written with a deep understanding of the context against which Wylie tells his story. If one thing is clear, it is that the state the economy is the state we are in. We deserve our fate if we simply brush this under the carpet and no one is held to account' * Construction Law * 'an outstanding treatise on how capitalism, when loosened from the constraints of decency, acts as a cancer within the souls of those who worship it ... Mr Wylie's work deserves to stand alongside Ian Fraser's Shredded: Inside RBS, the Bank that Broke Britain as one of the most important books of the last decade' -- Kevin McKenna * The Herald * 'There are echoes here of Carillion, the government outsourcer whose jaw-dropping demise is charted by Bob Wylie in Bandit Capitalism. Wylie cites Carillion's liberal use of receivables to mask its mounting debts; a similar accounting trick was used by Greensill. He also shows how slow government was to see what was happening' * FT *