Three years in, Capita chief rearranges the deckchairs again
By most accounts, the Congestion Charge operator’s reputation for providing poor service to its government and corporate clients is (largely) no more.
This is an achievement “turnaround chief executive” Jon Lewis rightly boasts of.
But you wouldn’t know it from the share price. With a company valuation of just £782 million, Capita is now worth little more than the £700 million Lewis raised from investors in an emergency fundraiser in 2018.
Since then, too little has been done, too slowly, to nurse the company back to health.
The sale process of non-core businesses has been far too slow — particularly next to Interserve’s flurry of decent-priced disposals.
The share price tells you what investors think of it.
Today, Lewis announces a rejig of the company into three divisions, including one in charge of business up for sale.
What good will that do, other than flag that fire sales are on the way?
Three years after Lewis’s arrival in post, this feels like a late rearranging of deckchairs.
A crueller interpretation: Capita has had the wrong structure for the past three years.
In fairness to Lewis, he did not carp on too much about Covid or Brexit today, making it clear that tough trading conditions had not forced today’s rethink. And Capita was a mess when he arrived.
But it’s hard to see how another reorganisation can help.
Just get on with it, Jon.
