£1.4bn wiped off key contractors

MORE than £1.4billion has been wiped off the value of key Government contractors following the collapse of Carillion.

Worried investors dumped shares in Capita, Mitie, Serco and Interserve – which have contracts to build roads and hospitals, maintain schools and run key NHS IT systems.

On Wednesday, shares in BBC licence fee collector Capita crashed 49 per cent and yesterday its shares sank a further 13.1 per cent – meaning it had lost £1.26billion off its stock market price in two days. But junior cabinet office minister Oliver Dowden said: ‘We do not believe [these firms] are in a comparable position to Carillion.’