Bespoke and be damned

摘要

For contractors, life has been good. For developers, faced with rising costs and limited construction resources, a cautious insurance market and the credit crunch, the market is challenging. One of those challenges is that developers are under huge pressure to involve contractors early in their schemes. A resulting increase in negotiated rather than competitively tendered contracts is being seen. Contractors, understandably, have been seeking to take advantage to better secure payment. For debt-funded schemes, using a special purpose vehicle (SPV), requests for direct payment by the bank is not uncommon.