Sir Roy Gardner primed to take the hot seat at struggling Serco May 27, 2015 SERCO will appoint Sir Roy Gardner as its new chairman, replacing Alastair Lyons. Gardner has previously served as the chairman of catering giant Compass, and is currently a non-executive director at bookmaker William Hill. He was also on the board of Manchester United when it was listed on the London Stock Exchange. Sky News reported [...]
Spreadbetter Plus500 bounces higher ahead of crunch shareholder meeting May 26, 2015 Crisis-hit spreadbetter Plus500 won the backing of top shareholder Odey Asset Management yesterday, ahead of a crunch meeting of shareholders today in London. An Odey fund run by James Hanbury added another tranche of shares to its holdings, taking the company’s ownership of the firm past 19 per cent, amid a broad-based rally in [...]
Serco share price dips as investors back rights issue April 17, 2015 Some good news for Serco: the troubled outsourcer said this morning its shareholders had largely supported a rights issue, with acceptances for 520m of 549m (that's 95 per cent) of new ordinary shares offered. The one-for-one rights issue, priced at 101p per new ordinary share, closed on Thursday. This morning, shares dipped 0.2 per cent to [...]
Serco sells luxury Australian rail service Great Southern Rail to Allegro March 30, 2015 Serco, the troubled outsourcer run by Rupert Soames, has extricated itself from Great Southern Rail, it announced this morning. The company said it will sell the "luxury" long-distance rail service to Australian private equity firm Allegro for £2.5m. Earlier this month shares in the outsourcer fell as much as 16 per cent after it posted [...]
Crunch time for troubled Serco Group as vote on proposed rights issue looms March 29, 2015 Shareholders in troubled outsourcing firm Serco will vote today on a proposed rights issue, aimed at raising £550m. The company’s shares dipped by over 30 per cent in the hours following the announcement of its plans in November, which came along with a profit warning for 2014. Serco stated at the time that it would [...]
Tough at the top: Will the FTSE giants fall from grace? March 26, 2015 From dividend cuts, to the accounting scandals just waiting to happen, SVM’s Colin McLean talks to Annabelle Williams about the potential pitfalls facing the UK market. The last few years have been tough for the UK’s biggest companies, as FTSE giants from supermarkets and banks, to insurers and oil majors, have come under pressure. [...]
Best of the Brokers for 24 March 2015 March 23, 2015 To appear in Best of the Brokers, email your research to notes@cityam.com INVESTEC Numis reiterated its “hold” rating on the asset management group following its pre-close update. The broker said it had made some “very modest forecast changes” as a result of the update, with predicted earnings per share revised downwards, from 36.4p to 35.6p. [...]
Best of the Brokers for 16 March 2015 March 16, 2015 To appear in Best of the Brokers, email your research to notes@cityam.com FENNER FinnCap reiterated its “hold” rating on the manufacturing firm after a trading update which prompted the broker to reduce its forecasts for 2015 and 2016. Year-end debt has been increased to £160m in part due to dollar debt translation. Target price is [...]
Serco slumps after £1.4bn loss March 12, 2015 SERCO boss Sir Rupert Soames has waived a £908,000 bonus after the outsourcing firm reported a loss of £1.35bn for 2014, compared with a profit of £108m the year before. Shares tumbled by 15 per cent as the market reacted to a set of results the company described as “very poor”. According to Serco, the [...]
AstraZeneca and TSB help London reverse declines – London Report March 12, 2015 UK SHARES rose yesterday, led by challenger bank TSB after it received a takeover offer, and by drugs group AstraZeneca on optimism about key trial results. Shares in TSB, which was spun off from Lloyds and listed at 280p per share last year, rose 23 per cent to 326p after it received a takeover bid [...]