City chiefs to take total control of NEC; POLITICS: Birmingham council in move to buy out Chamber's financial interest.Byline: Paul Dale BIRMINGHAM City Council is set to take total control of the NEC's management company. A move to buy out Birmingham Chamber of Commerce's remaining financial interest in the group will give the council sole ownership of the National Exhibition Centre, the National Indoor Arena and the International Convention Centre. Cabinet members are expected on Monday to agree to pay the Chamber a lump sum Lump sum A large one-time payment of money. in return for 5,000 Category A shares. If the deal goes through, the Chamber would still have half of the directors on the NEC (NEC Corporation, Tokyo, www.nec.com, www.necus.com) An electronics conglomerate known in the U.S. for its monitors. In Japan, it had the lion's share of the PC market until the late 1990s (see PC 98). NEC was founded in Tokyo in 1899 as Nippon Electric Company, Ltd. Ltd board, but would not qualify for dividend payments. Significantly, if the council decided to dispose of To determine the fate of; to exercise the power of control over; to fix the condition, application, employment, etc. of; to direct or assign for a use. See also: Dispose some or all of its shareholding at a future date, the Chamber would gain no financial benefit. Conservative city council leader Mike Whitby has made it clear that he will not sell "the family jewels" of the NEC. But with the council under pressure to cut a pounds 2.4 billion borrowing bill, disposal of the UK's biggest conference and exhibition centre outside of London has been talked about privately for months by Conservative backbench back·bench n. 1. Chiefly British The rear benches in the House of Commons where junior members of Parliament sit behind government officeholders and their counterparts in the opposition party. 2. city councillors. One person close to the negotiations, who wished to remain anonymous, said the Chamber might get the best of the deal in the short term. The lump sum payment to the Chamber is not being disclosed by the council, but it is thought to be less than pounds 500,000. With the Chamber facing its own cashflow difficulties and intent on replacing its offices in Edgbaston, the guarantee of significant annual income is likely to be too much to resist. The deal ends more than 20 years of behind-the-scenes negotiations, which have resulted in the Chamber's interest in the NEC gradually being bought out. A Chamber spokesman said: "The city council has always owned the assets of the NEC and that will not change. "The Chamber has a long relationship with the NEC and its existence was largely due to the Chamber's vision in the 1960s." |
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