As heavily tipped earlier this week, the Mapeley consortium has been selected as preferred bidder for the Inland Revenue/Customs & Excise STEPS accommodation outsourcing project.

Under STEPS, standing for The Strategic Transfer of the Estate to the Private Sector, the ownership and management of around 600 buildings, totalling about 1.5m sq m will transfer to the successful bidder. Under the contract Mapeley will provide the Government Departments with serviced accommodation for 20 years.

The Mapeley consortium includes Fortress Investment Corporation, Soros Real Estate Partners, Bank of America, Halifax, DTZ Debenham Thorpe, Grubb & Ellis Management Services, EC Harris, Delancey Estates, Morgan Stanley & Co Ltd, Electronic Data Systems Ltd (EDS), Aqumen Group plc, McLellan International Ltd and Sulzer-Infra CBX.

Commenting on the announcement, Robin Priest, Chief Executive of Mapeley said: "The whole team is delighted that Mapeley has been selected. This is the culmination of over 18 months of hard work by many people. We have had to prove ourselves against extremely high quality competition. In a rapidly growing market for serviced accommodation contracts, Mapeley has had to show it is at the forefront of delivering high quality, efficient and value for money service."

Mapeley beat Servus and Trillium in the final round of a contest, which began with an announcement just under two years ago, in August 1998. The procurement process began with notification in the Official Journal of the European Community (OJEC) at the end of March 1999. The three shortlisted consortia were invited to submit Invitations to Negotiate by 26 April this year.

Five consortia went beyond the pre-qualification stage, but two, Trinity (including CB Hillier Parker and Mace) and Newlands (including WS Atkins and Gardner Merchant) dropped out of the bidding, creating a de facto shortlist of three.

Richard Byatt