Carillion: Winners and Losers

City AM have listed the winners to save me the bother:

... Amid the chaos, however, lurk some cunning opportunists – most of whom can be found in Mayfair.

In many ways, Carillion has been the story of the short sellers. The most bet-against stock in Europe will see hedge funds share profits of around £300m between them. Marshall Wace took the biggest piece of this as shares plunged in the autumn. After it exited stage left, the fund was quickly replaced by rivals, steadfast in the belief worse was to come. Blackrock, the world’s biggest asset manager, has stuck around and still holds a chunky bet against the contractor.

Then there is a raft of advisers picking up hefty fees. The jewel in the crown would be the administrator mandate. EY is reportedly in the box seat, but pension scheme adviser PwC may cry foul, arguing its rival has a conflict given EY’s six-month role helping the company right-size operations.

But never mind the winners, back to the many losers from Carillion's decline – including, of course, the government. A decade on from the financial crisis it is incredible the state yet again finds itself under pressure to consider a taxpayer bailout of a private company, this time during a period of economic growth. Such situations imperil public faith in business and the very principles of a market-led economy, and remind us that regulators – in the financial sector and beyond – have some way to go before we can be confident that the spectre of bailouts has been consigned to the past.

As to paying hundreds of millions for "administration", sod that. All the government needs to do is send somebody round to each site where Carillion operates and tell everybody "You're working for us now, here's your new employment contract". Those people will then get onto their own suppliers and tell them to send future invoices to the Department of [whatever] and everything continues as was. It'll save the government taxpayer a fortune.

This is also another argument for deposit funded corporations - like building societies, co-operatives or partnerships, they don't have a share price, so speculators will have to find something better to do.