City Moves for 8 February – who’s switching jobs at Morrison & Foerster, Jefferies and DMH Stallard? February 8, 2019 Morrison & Foerster Morrison & Foerster, a leading global law firm, is pleased to announce that Christopher Kandel will be joining the firm’s London office in the coming days as a partner in its Finance practice. Christopher brings to the firm a wealth of experience in leveraged finance and complex international acquisition finance, and restructuring [...]
Serco wins billion-dollar army health contract down under as foreign push continues February 4, 2019 Support services outsourcer Serco has pushed on with increasing the amount of work it does overseas as the UK market stagnates, with a new billion-dollar contract win in Australia. The firm has been tasked with providing healthcare for around 80,000 members of the Australian army for the next six years, in a deal worth 1.01bn [...]
City Moves for 30 January – who’s switching jobs at Wesleyan, Horizon and Winckworth Sherwood? January 30, 2019 Who’s on the move today? Wesleyan Wesleyan, the specialist financial services provider – provides specialist financial advice and solutions to doctors, dentists, lawyers and teachers – has appointed Mario Mazzocchi as its new chief operating officer (COO). Mario previously spent 15 years with Lloyds Banking Group, most recently as COO for the Insurance and Wealth [...]
A year on from Carillion: 12 months that brought outsourcing to its knees January 15, 2019 On the anniversary of Carillion’s dramatic collapse, two more public sector outsourcing giants, Interserve and Kier Group, are up against the ropes. In the intervening 12 months, outsourcers have lurched from one crisis to another, with profit warnings, massive project failures and revelations of systemic late payment of suppliers. City A.M. charts a year which [...]
Carillion one year on: Government outsourcers are still struggling with growing debt piles January 15, 2019 On the anniversary of Carillion’s collapse, government outsourcers are still reporting ballooning debt levels as they try to balance the books. Kier Group, Interserve, Serco, Sodexo and Sopra Steria, who are all on the government’s list of strategic suppliers for 2019, have taken on hundreds of millions of pounds worth of debt in the last [...]
Serco shares jump to 14-month high as government awards decade-long asylum seeker housing contracts worth billions January 8, 2019 Outsourcers Serco and Mears have been tasked with providing a decades-worth of accommodation and support for asylum seekers across the UK, in a string of billion-pound contract awards. The 10-year contracts, worth £1.9bn for Serco and £1bn for Mears, bumped both companies’ share prices up around seven per cent today. Home Office minister Baroness Susan [...]
Serco stands out from outsourcing crowd with bullish trading update predicting strong profit growth December 13, 2018 Outsourcer Serco delivered a confident trading update today forecasting a 30-40 per cent increase in underlying profit for the year, despite the gloom that is gripping its rivals. The company predicted profit in the range of £90 to £95m, it upgraded its earnings per share forecasts for 2018 and 2019 and said its leverage and [...]
Outsourcers’ woes continue as construction giant Kier Group braces for potential drop from FTSE 250 December 4, 2018 The beleaguered UK outsourcing industry could suffer another blow in coming days with construction giant Kier Group looking set to drop from the FTSE 250 index. Kier’s stock was down another eight per cent this morning as the spectre of Wednesday’s round of FTSE index relegations and promotions loomed. City A.M. understands Kier is one of several [...]
Capita and other outsourcers to write ‘living will’ to protect public services from another Carillion collapse November 19, 2018 Outsourcing giant Capita has agreed to write a “living will” to protect public services in the event of a collapse similar to that of Carillion. Capita, Serco and Sopra Steria have volunteered to draw up contingency plans after the Cabinet Office said it lacked “key organisational information” that could have helped in the aftermath of [...]
FTSE roundup: Insurers dampened by heavy weather as Serco jumps on outsourcing woes September 28, 2018 The FTSE 100 ended the week 0.47 per cent down today, as a number of major insurers took heavy losses during trading on Friday. The index dropped 35.24 points to end the day at 7,510.20 RSA Insurance was the biggest loser on the stock market today, shedding 9.31 per cent after it told investors profits would be lower [...]