G4S investors wait for chair to step down
SHAREHOLDERS in G4S believe chairman Alf Duch-Pedersen may step down within the next two days without further prompting in the wake of the botched attempt to buy Danish cleaning group ISS.
City A.M. understands that while some shareholders have said they will not call for Duch-Pedersen’s head as a consequence of the failed £5.2bn takeover bid, others are waiting to see if he resigns voluntarily.
Still others have raised their concerns about Duch-Pedersen with G4S’s broker, Deutsche Bank, despite the bank’s role in setting up the ISS deal and advising G4S to push on with it.
“Rather than launch into a full scale meeting with the senior independent director and non-executive directors straight away, it’s worth holding fire for a day or two as he may go of his own volition,” one shareholder told City A.M.
Deutsche Bank has also come under fire from investors angered at the way the transaction was handled, as they feel they were given too little time to consider the deal. “The advisers have to take a lot of the blame for this,” one industry source said.
A G4S spokesman said it was in talks with shareholders to reassure them it would revert to its original strategy.