G4S (LON:GFS) reported a rise in full-year profits on Wednesday, causing shares to jump more than 6 percent.
According to the company’s figures, revenues increased by 6 percent to £6.8 billion, while pre-tax profits were upward by 14 percent to £352 million. This was largely attributed to growth in North America, where revenue hit 12.4 percent on sales growth across its technology and software businesses.
Across its UK and Ireland operations, revenue recorded growth of 1.5 percent, following the securing of a new security contract for a major international bank. In addition, its emerging markets business posted a 3.8 percent revenue growth, following new contracts in Latin America, Africa, the Asia Pacific and Middle East and India. The company noted that new contracts won had added an additional annual value of £1.3 billion, with a total value of £2.5 billion.
“Whilst there remains much to do to realise the full potential of our strategy, the group has made significant progress over the past three years,” Ashley Almanza, chief executive of G4S said.
Full year dividend remained unchanged at 9.41p.
This marks a significant improvement in the company’s performance, which has been the subject of controversy after it had to pay a £109 million settlement with the UK government after it was exposed to have continually overcharged for electronically tagging offenders.
Chief executive Ashley Almanza commented today, that the UK continues to be imperative to the company’s future business. She stated:
“The UK is still a very important market for us and one where we’re going to continue to invest.”
G4S is a multi-national security services company, with headquarters in Crawley, that came into being in 2004 following a merger between UK firm Securicor plc and Danish Company 4 Falck. The company is one of the world’s largest security operations, with around 618,000 employees across 125 countries.
In early morning Wednesday trading, shares in G4S rallied by 5.40 percent. Shares continue to perform upwardly by 7.74 percent as of 14.00PM (GMT).