Serco abandons plans to sell on Shropshire leisure centres
Serco has abandoned plans to sell the management of five of Shropshire's biggest leisures centres.
Late last year, Serco announced plans to offload its environmental services and leisure businesses, including the rights to run centres owned by Shropshire Council.
The 10-year contract to run the centres, including the Quarry Leisure Centre and Sports Village in Shrewsbury, the new Oswestry Leisure Centre, and other centres in Market Drayton and Whitchurch, was signed three years ago.
Now Serco has announced that it has shelved the plans to offload these divisions, in the wake of the sale of its BPO business last week.
"The recent agreement to dispose of the offshore private sector BPO operations has prompted us to review the previously stated intention to also dispose of our environmental services and leisure businesses," the company said.
"Our conclusion is that, for both strategic and financial reasons, the interests of the group will be best served by retaining these businesses within the portfolio.
"In common with the rest of the group, they provide frontline services to public sector customers.
"In particular, they serve local authorities in the UK, to whom we provide a number of other services and we feel that there is real merit in retaining a broad offering to these important customers.
"Furthermore, the environmental services and leisure businesses have continued to perform well both financially and operationally, and have a strong pipeline of opportunities."
The sale of BPO is set to lead Serco to a big drop in revenue and profits next year, and the sale prompted a sharp fall in the company's share value when it was announced last week.
Underlying trading profit next year will be about £50 million compared with analysts' consensus forecast of £69 million. Revenue is likely to fall by about 20 per cent to £2.8bn.
It landed the contract to run the sites in July 2012, promising to make "significant" investment in the centres over the course of the 10-year contract.
The deal was designed to save £350,000 a year in subsidy payments, as the centres were costing the council £1.2 million a year to run.
