Thursday, October 17, 2013

Indiana University Decides Against Privatization Of Parking Assets

After a lengthy study of the issue, IU President Michael McRobbie recommended to IU's Board of Trustees that the university pass on a plan to privatize the university's parking assets at its Bloomington and Indianapolis campuses. Instead, the university will focus on developing a "strategic business plan to increase operating efficiency and optimize parking revenue."

“We conducted a thorough and inclusive analysis of both the financial and nonfinancial aspects of a long-term parking agreement and, in the end, concluded that the valuation of our parking assets simply wasn’t compelling enough to justify losing control of our operations for 50 years,” said [IU's CFO Mary Frances] McCourt, who presented a summary of the university’s analysis to the Board of Trustees today. “Our decision is based, in large part, on the assumption that we will make improvements to our existing parking operations that will result in additional revenue to the university, and we will begin that work immediately.”

According to the university's press release, IU hired Goldman Sachs and Walker Consulting, both of which have participated in heavily-criticized municipal parking privatization deals, to aid in its analysis that led to the university's decision not to privatize. Walker Consulting was a partner in Indianapolis' privatization effort. Goldman Sachs served as a financial adviser on Chicago's controversial privatization deal for its parking assets.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Mitch will privatize cleaning out toilets at Purdue.

Unigov said...

"IU hired Goldman Sachs and Walker Consulting"

To coin a phrase, wtf ? They hired the fox to assess henhouse design ?