2.34 The Trust's advisers, KPMG, benchmarked the terms of the bank finance obtained by Bywest. They found the terms on which Abbey National was providing finance were very competitive. They attribute this to Abbey National being keen to finance PFI hospital deals.
2.35 Based on the Treasury Building experience, where a funding competition was used after new contract terms had been developed, it can sometimes be helpful to have the financing competed for once the contract has been totally agreed. In this case, KPMG did not think that this would be appropriate as it wanted the selected funder involved in the final negotiations on the new standard contract. KPMG was satisfied that competitive financing would be obtained without a funding competition. In addition, the Trust had the right to compel the consortium to seek alternative financing arrangements if it could show that the original finance terms were not competitive.