G4S IS set to become one of the world’s biggest employers after agreeing to buy ISS, the Danish services provider, in an ambitious £5.2 billion deal that seeks to create a global leader in outsourcing.
The combined group will have revenues of nearly £16 billion and employ more than one million people, providing services from plant-watering to security in Iraq to guards for the London Olympics.
It will rank second only to Walmart in staff numbers for a private sector employer.
Shares in G4S tumbled more than 22 per cent in reaction to the deal, partly on the scale of the £2 billion rights issue to fund it and doubts over whether G4S can pull off the integration of the two companies. G4S has more than 3,000 staff in Ireland.
G4S operates across a range of security-related areas including border and embassy protection, prisons and cash management for financial institutions.
G4S recently took over the management of Birmingham prison – the first in Britain to be transferred from the public to the private sector. – (Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2011)
