CRUMBS

摘要

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. Just over two months ago Bill Hocking, head of Galliford Try's construction arm, was telling Building he expected Carillion's banks to reach a settlement with the troubled contractor, which was in partnership with his firm on an Aberdeen bypass project. The road scheme known as the Aberdeen Western Peripheral Route was one of three jobs that had forced Carillion to take a £375m hit. It had set the alarm bells ringing. As it turned out Hocking, like pretty much everyone else, was wrong: the banks didn't do a deal. Nor, when pushed, did HM Government. The rest, as they say, is history. Rightly or wrongly, the collapsed firm has become a byword for executive incompetence, financial profligacy and, in some quarters, single-handedly tarnishing the reputation of a multibillion-pound industry. "To do a Carillion" will doubtless become part of the lexicon of business studies undergraduates for years to come.