Woodford backs G4S chief exec

17 July 2012 | By Chris Salih

Invesco Perpetual income guru Neil Woodford has given his backing to under fire G4S chief executive Nick Buckles as the firm’s share price continues to slide.

In an interview with Reuters, Woodford said Buckles had been let down by local staff and should not have to resign over the London Olympic contract failure.

The security firm’s share price was down 5.7 at close on Tuesday. Today’s fall follows a loss of around 9 per cent on Monday after the security company said it expected to make a loss on its £284m Olympic contract. G4S promised 10,400 Olympic security guards, which it cannot deliver in full, and the failure could cost the firm up to £50m.

The firm is the biggest faller in the FTSE 100, which ended the day down 0.6 per cent.

Woodford said he was annoyed by the debacle but said one contract failure should not damage the group’s overall reputation.

“It is my view that the interest of shareholders are best served by keeping Nick Buckles in this business because his track record is excellent,” he told Reuters on Tuesday.

“I don’t want to throw all of that away on the back of this failure of local management to deliver one contract, one of literally thousands and thousands of contracts that this company has around the world.”

On Monday, Fundweb revealed that G4S was a key holding of the £5.2bn M&G Global Basics fund, managed by Graham French.

The stock made up 4.7 per cent of the Global Basics portfolio as of May 31. M&G confirms that French still holds the stock but added the manager was unavailable to comment. French also owns the company in his £1bn M&G Managed Growth fund, which had a 2 per cent allocation to the stock as of June 30.

G4S chief executive Nick Buckles will go before MPs later to explain why his company was unable to provide the Olympics staff it promised.

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