Securitas in its 2007 annual report admitted ‘difficulties’ with its UK cash in transit business.
Alf Göransson, company president and CEO, spoke of the company moving from a ‘geographical market driven organisation to a more customer segment focused organisation’. Worldwide the firm has 250,000 staff.
The Security Services Europe arm reported that it increased its market share by growing faster than the market. Client retention rate was stable at around 90 per cent. The employee turnover last year was slightly higher than in 2006, at 39 per cent compared to 38 per cent. What the firm termed the strong labour markets in most European countries ‘challenged the organisation’s ability to retain its employees’. The firm reported that its objective in Europe is to grow faster than the market average and to see yearly margin improvements. “This will be achieved by specialising in specific customer segments and offering tailor-made security solutions.” Operating margin last year was 5.7 per cent (down from 5.8pc the year before). By comparison, operating margin for ‘mobile and monitoring’ (call-out and key-holding; and electronic alarm monitoring) was 12pc.
As for Loomis, the recently renamed cash handling arm, Alf Göransson described performance as ‘unsatisfactory’ and weak. UK sales were below the previous year ‘due to a loss of volume within the Loomis Cash Management operation’, which was sold in November 2007 to HSBC and Barclays, the previous minority owners.
