Although the financial press has now elaborated somewhat as to how ‘they’ see Kier’s finances – ‘they’ say all is not quite a bad as originally reported –
Some may remember the collapse of the very large contractor and outsourcing company ‘Carillion’ last year, Kier it is said not to be in the same position.
From Sky News Business:-
See : FT Front Page Side Headline (left)
If you’re running a heavily-indebted company, and you’re obliged to ask shareholders for money to save the business, it is not exactly a vote of confidence when most decide against putting their hand in their pocket.
So Haydn Mursell, the chief executive of construction services group Kier, must have known he was on borrowed time when, in December, just 38% of Kier’s investors took up their rights to buy new shares in the company at a deeply discounted price.
It was the lowest take-up of a rights issue by a UK company in six years (the typical take-up is around 95%) and saddled the five bookrunners to the deal – Peel Hunt, Santander, Citi, Numis Securities and HSBC – and their sub-underwriters with nearly £135m worth of Kier shares that they had to buy at 409p each – compared with the 740p at which they were trading before the cash call was announced.
The share price then plunged further in anticipation of the brokers and underwriters selling their unwanted shares – sinking to as low as 335p on 20 December.
They have since recovered some ground but, shortly after Christmas, it emerged that Neil Woodford, the company’s biggest shareholder, was agitating for change.
Read complete article on Sky News – Here
So let us ‘all’ hope the finances being allocated by the Metro-Mayor Palmer and Cambs CC is ‘secured’ and will deliver the Bridge…..
