G4S surge gaining strength as it poaches new finance chief

G4S investors have enjoyed another run of surging shares after the security giant poached Petrofac’s finance director to do the same job looking after its numbers.

The world’s biggest security firm’s stock rose 18% last week when it confounded fears by retaining its dividend and posting decent half-year figures.

It didn’t have to look far to find a finance boss to replace retiring incumbent Himanshu Raja.

New signing Tim Weller, who has worked as finance boss at oilfield services company Petrofac since 2011, is also a non-executive on G4S’s board.

Ashley Almanza, chief executive, said it was “greatly to [G4S’s] advantage that Tim arrives with an already deep understanding of G4S and our… transformation programme”.

The shares today rose 3.7p to 230.3p, and investors will be hoping Weller can help guide G4S back into the FTSE 100, after it was booted out last December following a tumultuous period of overcharging the Government for tagging dead or non-existent prisoners, and failures over its London 2012 Olympic security contract.

Almanza, however, refuses to discuss G4S’s future positioning in the index, telling the Standard on Friday: “The market will decide.”