Interserve soars 26pc as it secures vital funding
SHARES in Interserve surged after the outsourcer received a lifeline from its lenders that will put it on a more secure financial footing.
The refinancing will see it get a £196.6m cash injection and £95m in bonds following talks with its banks, which include HSBC, Lloyds, RBS and Barclays.
Fears had been mounting for the group, which holds several government contracts and employs 80,000, as the fallout from the collapse of Carillion threatened to engulf the sector.
It is responsible for British military bases in Gibraltar and the Falkland Islands and has several contracts with councils, London Underground and Whitehall.
Shares surged 25.75pc to 87.9p shortly before market close.
Interserve added that its total debt pile will stand at £834m once the refinancing is complete.
The FTSE 100 edged 0.32pc, or 22.3 points lower, to 7038.97 due in part to another tough day for tech firms. Three directors of FTSE 100 tech giant Micro Focus learned the hard way that you should never try to time the markets.
On Monday, investors shed £11bn of technology investments in the wake of the Facebook data scandal. British companies weren’t immune: Micro Focus fell 46pc after a gloomy update.
Probably assuming the worst was over, chairman Kevin Loosemore, 59, and non-exec directors Karen Slatford, 61, and Darren Roos snapped up about £350,000 worth of shares.
But they fell a further 1.9pc, or 18.8p, to 972.6p, leaving them nursing a £11,400 loss on their new shares. In total their stake has dropped £7.1m in value in two
days. The FTSE 250 ended down 0.28pc, or 55.52 points, at 19668.04 but Neil Woodford will probably have popped open a bottle of bubbly after his Woodford Patient
Capital Trust topped the index. Shares in his fund surged after Prothena, its biggest holding, signed a £1.48bn deal with a US investor to develop treatments for dementia.
It will come as a huge relief to Britain’s most famous fund manager, who has suffered from a series of high-profile stock picking disasters of late. Woodford shares leapt 11.3pc, or 8.2p, to 81p.
At the other end of the FTSE 250, profit taking took the shine off a decent set of results for IT infrastructure provider Softcat.
It reported a 25pc rise in revenue and a 15.4pc increase in operating profits, while customer numbers were also up. Softcat ended the day down 13.3pc, or 90p, at 589p. Elsewhere, inhaler maker Vectura tanked after a loss of £102.2m, due in part to falling royalties and higher costs associated with its takeover of Skyepharma. It is the second blow in a month after it said its generic version of an asthma treatment, which it is working on with Hikma, will not be out until at least 2020. Shares fell 15.2pc, or 12.25p, to 68.4p.
Meanwhile, a tiny Aim-listed technology company has partnered with the billionaire Winklevoss twins – Cameron and Tyler – who famously sued Mark Zuckerberg in 2004 for allegedly stealing the idea for Facebook. The deal means customers of Beeks
Financial Cloud, which provides software for currency traders, can trade crypto currency on the brothers’ Gemini exchange.
It is thought the pair have made more than a billion dollars through bitcoin and other currencies. Shares rose 3.4pc, or 2p, to 61.5p.
Publisher Future has paid rival Haymarket Media Group £14m in cash and shares for What Hi-Fi?, electronics title Stuff, football magazine FourFourTwo, Practical Caravan and Practical Motorhome. The titles generated £14m in revenue in the year to June 2017. Future shares rose 4.5pc, or 16p, to 370p.