Capita, the business outsourcing giant, is understood to be preparing a bid for ailing insurance service provider Miller Fisher.
Miller Fisher was in talks with an unnamed buyer, thought to be Capi ...
Capita, the business outsourcing giant, is understood to be preparing a bid for ailing insurance service provider Miller Fisher.
Miller Fisher was in talks with an unnamed buyer, thought to be Capita, five months ago, which broke down after just a month.
Since then, Miller Fisher's share price has plunged. The company is now worth just £5.3m, compared to £36m at the time of earlier bid talks and £146m when its shares were at an all-time high.
Miller Fisher appointed HSBC to consider the future of the company last November.
Capita has made a series of acquisitions recently. In May, it paid £33m for McLarens Dick, the UK loss-adjusting arm of McLarens Toplis and the second-largest UK loss adjusting company, while last year it bought outsourcing firm Eastgate.
Miller Fisher bought rival business Pycroft & Arnold in 1999, but has suffered from insurers cutting down loss-adjusting panels and issued a profit warning last year. It sold off its underperforming insurance arm Homecare for £4.5m earlier this year.
Miller Fisher is currently undertaking a management shake-up, which will see a number of redundancies. Jim Douglas and Terry Hallas, former directors of Pycraft & Arnold prior to its acquisition by Miller Fisher in 1999, are to lose their jobs. Other former directors have been offered positions elsewhere in the company.
Newly-appointed group chief operating officer Tom Anderson said the move was part of the group's reorganisation into a single trading entity.
Miller Fisher is predicting favourable first-half results, compared to an operating loss of £80,000 for the first half of 2000.a
