G4S Stages Recovery With Earnings and Contracts Boost

Security firm G4S has staged its recovery in the wake of the prisoner tagging scandal, seeing its pre-tax profits rise by 6.3% to £185m.

G4S placed new contracts worth £1.2bn front and centre in its half year results. Its earnings after tax and deductions were up 13.2% at £86m. Revenue was up by 4.1% to £3.37bn.

Despite acknowledging strong demand from emerging markets and North America, CEO Ashley Almanza said that the firm is still has plenty of work to do.

"There remains much to be done to capture the full potential of our strategy and to strengthen the group's performance," he said.

The company seems to be getting its operations back on track after the UK government discovered it was being overcharged for tagging prisoners by the company and its rival Serco; both the companies are being investigated by the Serious Fraud Office over the affair.

G4S also came in for serious stick after it failed to recruit sufficient security staff for the London 2012 Olympics.

Almanza said G4S had sold six businesses over the past year netting the firm £160m, including its business in Sweden which was sold in July 2014.

He added: "We have taken the decision to discontinue a further 15 smaller businesses and have an ongoing sale process for our US Government Solutions business. Portfolio management remains important for strategic focus, capital discipline and performance management."

G4S recently confirmed that it would withdraw from controversial work supplying security equipment for the Israeli government by 2016.

Shares in G4S were up by a moderate 1.46% in early morning trading to reach 263.60p. Its share value has been flat for most of this year but have seen a 4% lift over the last 12 month. Serco's share value, by contrast, is down 46% over past 12 months.