Shares in IWG suffered their biggest one-day fall in 12 months, after underwhelming half-year results failed to convince investors.
Analysts have cut their forecasts for the serviced office provider for the rest of this year, leading shares to plunge 17%, before recovering to about 10% down.
IWG said it made a gross profit of of £216m and adjusted EBITDA of £123m. But after adjustments – including Covid costs and those incurred from “geopolitical tensions” – and taxes, this was converted to an £81.3m loss. This represented a loss of 11.6p per share over the period.
Before yesterday the market had thought IWG would turn an adjusted operating profit of around £73m in 2022. However, even Barclays, the group’s house broker, is now expecting a loss of £20m. Barclays added that a “severe recession” could hit IWG’s profits by as much as £900m over the next three years.
