London — Capita is raising £700m from investors to stop the rot at the outsourcing company that CE Jon Lewis said had failed to adequately control costs, had grown unwieldy through acquisitions and had too much debt. The cash should give the British company breathing space in a tough market, which saw Carillion collapse under the weight of poorly performing contracts and debt in January. Capita, like Carillion, is one of a number of British service companies to have run into problems by chasing contracts on slim margins. Lewis, who took over in December after working for oil services company Amec Foster Wheeler, said many of Capita’s problems were self-inflicted and could be tackled by doing "fewer things better". "Capita needs an injection of discipline," he told analysts. He launched his new strategy after Capita’s full-year pretax loss ballooned to £513.1m from a £89.8m loss in 2016 as it saw a deterioration in new business opportunities and some contracts were terminated. The gr...
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