Outsourcing giant Capita saved £26m last year from slashing its property footprint as part of a broader cost cutting drive, it revealed this morning.
The London-listed company said it closed 55 properties in 2021, on top of the 49 that were closed in 2020, also reducing its lease obligations by £49m, a 10% reduction to £424m at the end of the year.
It means the company has cut its property footprint by a quarter in two years. And there are more closures to come, the outsourcer said, with “further property rationalisations” part of an ongoing savings plan for the coming year.
“Reducing the size of our property portfolio continues to be a major driver of cost savings in the business,” it said.
The news came with Capita’s full-year results for 2021, in which it reported a £286m profit, up from last year’s loss of £49m.
The FTSE 250 company has been undergoing a revamp over past years, with chief executive John Lewis cutting costs significantly and slimming down the firm since joining more than four years ago amid mounting debts and contract failures.
Capita collects the BBC licence fee, operates the London congestion charge and deals with the government’s universal credit scheme. It was also awarded a contract for the government’s Covid test-and-trace programme during the pandemic.
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