Interserve has been sold after filing for administration, the outsourcer announced.
There will be £110 million of new money coming into Interserve Plc – which holds crucial Government contracts for a range of services in prisons, schools and hospitals – and all companies in the group other than the parent firm will remain solvent.
Interserve employs 45,000 people in the UK, and the move has been welcomed by the Cabinet Office.
A spokesman for the department said: “It brings the company the stability required for it to compete for future business and continue to deliver good value public services for the taxpayer.”
The sale is expected to go through on or before Monday, according to a statement from the company.
The “alternative deleveraging transaction will restore the group’s balance sheet and provide additional liquidity”, it said, adding: “The administrators have immediately sold Interserve’s business and assets to a new company, to be controlled by Interserve’s lenders.”
Earlier on Friday, Interserve’s investors voted against a rescue plan which aimed to slash near-£650 million debts by proposing a debt-for-equity swap with its lenders which would have seen their holding slashed to just 5%.
The deal involves the equitisation of around £485 million of existing debts.
