Capita placing to pay for new acquisitions
CAPITA yesterday fired the starting gun on a new round of acquisitions funded by the placing of 40m shares while it reported a sales jump of 17 per cent.
The outsourcer said it placed around 40m new shares – equivalent to 6.5 per cent of its existing issued share capital and valued at about £274m.
It also revealed that chief executive Paul Pindar will sell around 400,000 shares, reducing his holding to around 1.3m.
The FTSE 100 company said that Pindar’s share sale was connected to a one-off personal settlement he was making.
Capita, whose placing was managed by Citi and Deutsche Bank, said its first quarter had been buoyant, adding it had a healthy pipeline of contract work.
Capita spent £341m on 21 acquisitions last year to help support earnings in tough markets. While earmarking further acquisitions, it said it was confident of hitting organic revenue growth targets in line with expectations.
The firm said it had won £900m of work so far this year and that its bid pipeline stood at £4.6bn in February.
“The acquisition environment continues to offer a rare opportunity to broaden the business”, it added.