Aberdeen backs Interserve

A TOP-five shareholder in struggling Interserve has thrown its weight behind the company’s proposed rescue deal.

Aberdeen Standard Investments, which owns almost 5pc of the outsourcing group, said it backs a package unveiled last month that will keep Interserve as a listed company but will result in its lenders owning 95pc of the firm in exchange for cancelling £485m of debt.

The move will be a blow to Interserve’s biggest investor, New York-based Coltrane Asset Management, which has tabled its own proposal and wants to oust the group’s entire board except for chief executive Debbie White.

Andrew Hunt, investment director at Aberdeen Standard Investments, told the Mail that the deal – known as the deleveraging plan – ‘is in the best interests of Interserve and all its stakeholders, including shareholders, as a whole’ and should be voted through when shareholders meet next Friday (March 15).

Aberdeen’s support comes days after leading shareholder advisory group, Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS), also said it backed the group’s plan.

Although ISS said the deal is ‘not without concern for shareholders’, it said investors should vote for the plan because it would avoid the company becoming insolvent and reduce debt.

Interserve has been under pressure since 2016 after a ruinous move into the energy-from-waste sector. Its net debt had soared to £631m at the end of 2018.

The company’s struggles have drawn comparisons with the plight of rival Carillion, which collapsed last January.