Immigration work lifts sales at Serco

SERCO shares soared as it upgraded its sales and profit forecasts after a bumper start to the year.

The FTSe 250 outsourcing group said it was losing around £220m in sales now that its work on the Government’s Covid contract tracing program has ended.

But a boom in work for governments around the world had offset the lost test-and-trace business, with soaring income from immigration, healthcare and defence.

It has a contract with the Government to house asylum seekers in the Midlands and the North West and has seen an unexpected surge in arrivals. It also manages immigration detention centres for the Australian government where it has seen a higher number of arrivals than expected.

As a result, Serco said it expects a £215m profit this year, a slight drop from last year but ahead of its previous forecast of £195m.

It also upped its sales forecast to between £4.3bn and £4.4bn, compared with an earlier forecast of £4.1bn. Shares climbed 9.8pc, or 14.9p, to 167.7p.