BUSINESS BRIEFS

Georgakis's $2000 a day

Chartered accountant John Georgakis will be paid $2000 per day to wind up the Centro Properties Group (CPG). The shopping centre group has undergone a restructure involving the cancellation of $2.7 billion in debt amassed during the global financial crisis as its lenders exchanged loans for ownership of the underlying assets. A new group, Centro Retail Australia, now owns Centro's assets and has begun trading on the ASX. The former Centro funds, including Centro Properties Group and Centro Retail Group, are in the process of being wound up. Mr Georgakis has been appointed CPG's chief executive to oversee that process.

INFRASTRUCTURE

UGL deal with RailCorp

Engineering firm UGL says an extension of a contract with RailCorp will generate $1.4 billion in revenue over seven years. UGL and Unipart Rail have extended their contract with RailCorp for the provision of heavy maintenance and logistics management services on 1050 passenger carriages on Sydney's railway network. The contract has an initial term of seven years, with an option to extend by five years and potentially generate $900 million more in revenue, UGL said.

PROPERTY

Century 21 acquisition

Real estate agent Century 21 has acquired the assets of the listed property manager Wentworth Holdings to strengthen its property management operations. Century 21's owner Charles Tarbey, a member of the Wentworth board, acquired Wentworth's rent roll assets for an undisclosed sum. The acquisition will allow Century 21 to offer management services to property owners throughout Australia. Mr Tarbey has resigned from Wentworth's board.

ENERGY

Wind farms refinance

Woolnorth Studland Bay Wind Farm and Bluff Point Wind Farm have hired National Australia Bank to help organise a $180 million term loan that will be used to refinance two existing loans. NAB has begun marketing the loan to other banks. The wind farms are owned by Hydro-Electric Corp, also known as Hydro Tasmania, is a renewable energy company owned by the Tasmanian government. Hydro will join the Guohua Energy Investment Company in the ownership, management and operation of the wind farms. Guohua Energy will pay $88.6 million to take a 75 per cent equity stake in the wind farms. The transaction will return $30 million in tax to the state.

MINING

Indigenous joint venture

Fortescue Metals Group has begun a new phase of collaboration between miners and indigenous groups with a joint venture operation to be run with native title-holders in the Pilbara. Fortescue said yesterday that it had signed a land access agreement with the Njamal people for access to land covered by the company's North Star and Glacier Valley magnetite projects. In exchange, the Njamal people will become joint owners of another magnetite mine.