1.20 The Department recognised that, through combining the PRIME and PRIME expansion estates in an expanded PRIME contract, Land Securities Trillium could provide savings through economies of scale, efficiencies and synergies. These might not necessarily have been obtained if Land Securities Trillium had won a competition as it need not have offered them all to beat its competitors who would not have been able to offer the benefits of integration.
1.21 Furthermore, the Department's review of the supplier market indicated that the field of credible potential bidders for the project was very small. In any case, it was likely that other bidders would have been discouraged from competing with Land Securities Trillium, given the latter's significant competitive advantage as the incumbent supplier.
1.22 The key question was whether Land Securities Trillium had a motive to bid competitively. It was clear to Land Securities Trillium that not winning the expansion of the PRIME contract, which it regarded as the flagship in its portfolio, would seriously have risked damaging its credibility with other potential clients and with the stock market. Land Securities needed to demonstrate to its investors that the price it had paid for Trillium was justified and it, therefore, needed Land Securities Trillium to maintain the momentum it had built up. Expanding PRIME would be a good way for it to achieve that.