G4S is hit by £100m security guard win

PROFITS at contractor G4S dived after it handed £100m to US security guards who got no meal or rest breaks.

The company set aside the cash after a Los Angeles court ruled that 13,000 security guards had been underpaid between 2001 and 2010.

Pre-tax profit fell 63pc to £143m, while revenue dropped 4pc to £7.5bn.

Shares fell as much as 8pc early on as its results were worse than the City had hoped, but later recovered. G4S is to start spinning off its cash collections unit in the second half of this year.

Revenue in the cash arm fell 9pc in 2018, mostly because a year earlier it had been boosted by a big contract win in North America.

The company declared a final dividend of 6.1p per share – unchanged on the year before – meaning investors will pocket 9.7p for the full year.

Shares closed down 2.2pc, or 4.5p, to 203.8p.