We commissioned the Corporate Finance arm of PriceWaterhouseCoopers4, who have considerable experience in aviation infrastructure finance, to advise us on;
■ the financial robustness of the winning bid by the Airline Group; and
■ whether the arrangements built into the deal to secure the interests of the taxpayer as minority shareholder, appear sufficient and in accordance with best private sector practice for minority shareholders.
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4 PricewaterhouseCoopers did carry out an independent evaluation for the Department of the value of NATS' business in 2001, but were not involved in the PPP sale process itself. They did not provide advice or opinions to the Department on the issues where advice was subsequently sought from them by the National Audit Office. In these circumstances we did not find that any conflict arose in commissioning advice from them.