7th Oct 2020 10:35
(Alliance News) - G4S PLC on Wednesday hit back at Montreal-based Garda World Security Corp, calling its recently published documents "misleading".
On Tuesday, Garda World - which made a GBP3 billion cash offer for G4S - had said it was engaging directly with G4S's shareholders and heaped further criticism upon G4S's current management and released an announcement and presentation.
G4S said the documents that made these claims were "misleading and designed to serve the interests of GardaWorld and BC Partners rather than the interests of G4S's shareholders, customers, employees and pension fund members."
These documents included a number of claims that G4S disputes, such as that G4S's pension deficit has been "highly underestimated" with "serious issues" over the status of G4S's GBP2.7 billion of pension scheme gross liabilities.
G4S responded to this saying its UK pension schemes had assets of GBP2.4 billion, liabilities of GBP2.7 billion and a net deficit of GBP300 million at the end of 2019.
"The funding position of the group's pension schemes has been underpinned by responsible company contributions and a strong balance sheet reflected in G4S's investment grade credit rating," said G4S.
Attention was also drawn to G4S's GBP1.6 billion of one-off and restructuring charges since 2013.
In an emailed statement to Alliance News, G4S stated that it "has fully and transparently disclosed all of these matters to shareholders already" and that "shareholders already understand that it has required this investment to address a number of significant, long-standing legacy issues".
Garda World's cash offer is for 190p per share, which G4S maintains "significantly undervalues G4S and its prospects".
According to G4S: "GardaWorld's focus on legacy issues, which are now substantially resolved, and its misleading statements are designed to provide support for its opportunistic and clearly inadequate offer."
G4S advised its shareholders to reject the offer and take no action whatsoever.
"GardaWorld's record is one of a loss-making company which has reported net losses attributable to shareholders of CAD940 million in the past three years and it lacks the geographic coverage to be a truly global company. GardaWorld clearly needs a transformative acquisition in order to realise its aspiration to be a global company and this is simply not reflected in its offer of 190 pence per share," said G4S.
Shares in G4S were down 0.2% at 201.60 pence in London on Wednesday morning.
By Anna Farley; [email protected]
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