Millennium windfall for Securicor

By JONATHAN PRYNN FOR MAILONLINE
Updated:

 

Security and distribution company Securicor bagged a £3m Millennium windfall when it was hired by the Government to ferry tonnes of extra bank notes around the country in preparation for the long New Year holiday.

Ministers ordered 50% extra cash to be made available to the banks in anticipation of panic withdrawals. The Millennium bonus helped the company's security division to a 21% first-half profit advance to £24.5m.

The rest of the group, which sold its 40% stake in the Cellnet mobile network to BT for £3.1bn last July, did less well with profits from distribution knocked £10m by rising fuel costs and the communications division remaining in loss, albeit at a lower level.

At the operating level profits at the group headed by Roger Wiggs fell from £22.5m to £15.6m but interest from cash raised by the sale of a 50% stake in the distribution division to Deutsche Post meant that pre-tax profits for the six months to end March were up nearly 40% from £14.7m to £20.4m.

The interim dividend is raised 25% to 0.6p. Earnings per share are up a third at 2.4p.

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