Massive loss causes White Young Green to restructure debt

Consultant group White Young Green has posted a pre-tax loss of £129m and agreed a deal with its banks to restructure its debts.

The company saw a 8% drop in revenue to £214m while its operating profit fell 36% to £17m. But exceptional costs for redundancies, office closures and provisions for bad debt of £141m turned this into a massive loss.

It has agreed a three-year refinancing deal which will see £50m of debt turned into equity with the issue of new ordinary and preference shares with the balance of the debt turned into debt and working capital  facilities. The move will see the lenders owning 60.5% of the shares with a new employee benefit trust owning 24.5% and existing shareholders approximately 15%. 

The results are the first since chief executive Paul Hamer took over the role since Lawrie Haynes’ sudden departure in January this year. Shares in the company rose from 8.5p to almost 12p on news of the deal – well short of the November 2008 high of £1.37 level.