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Quindell Appoints Chief Executive; Confident Of Meeting Expectations
[June 19, 2014]

Quindell Appoints Chief Executive; Confident Of Meeting Expectations


(Alliance News Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) LONDON (Alliance News) - Quindell PLC Thursday said it will promote the head of its services unit to be chief executive of the insurance and telecommunications outsourcing company.

The appointment comes in the wake of Quindell's failure last week to attain a premium listing on the London Stock Exchange, because it hadn't fulfilled all of the conditions for making the step up from AIM.

Quindell, which is weighing up its listing options, including a possible listing in North America, said it intends to appoint Robert Fielding as its CEO following its annual general meeting, which is scheduled to start at 1000 BST Thursday. Quindell said its founder, Robert Terry, will remain with the group as chairman. Previously, Terry was executive chairman, and Quindell didn't have a group CEO. The company said it will make a further announcement on its management.



The group said it will tell shareholders that is confident in its ability to meet full-year market expectations, due to what it terms as its key performance indicators of cash conversion, adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation, and adjusted earnings per share.

Quindell said it is also confident of returning to a "broadly neutral" operating cash position on a quarterly basis in the third-quarter, and of delivering "strong positive" operating cash flow in the final quarter of 2014 and beyond. It said it expects the value of new contracts signed and existing contracts extended to be in excess of GBP250.0 million per year, subject to claims.


Quindell said that the contract wins and extensions result in an increase in revenue for a number of its business areas, but highlighted legal services, where it expects run-rate revenues to increased to about GBP900.0 million a year, from about GBP650.0 million, from the start of the second-half.

"These contracts, with terms from one to five years in duration, are across the range of the group's customers, including intermediaries, insurers and brokers. Significantly, this includes one of the UK's leading brokers, a subsidiary of a major global insurance company, which in the last few days has extended its relationship with the group for a period of five years," Quindell said it will tell shareholders at its AGM.

"The other major area of future growth has been the signing of multiple new telematics contracts in various geographies and the successful delivery into live implementations of a number of our telematics solutions in North America," Quindell added.

Quindell shares were Thursday quoted at 18.44 pence, up 4.2%, but remain some way off a high of 45.50 pence on April 8.

Shares fell sharply on April 22 after Gotham City Research LLC said it was unable to reconcile between 42% and 80% of Quindell's profits, and alleged that it suspected they were explained by sales to related parties owned and operated by Terry.

Quindell responded by calling the note highly defamatory and deliberately misrepresentative. It said it was taking legal action, and had reported Gotham City to regulators after saying Gotham took short positions on Quindell's shares before publishing the report.

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