Securitas sells UK cash handling unit

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Securitas said on Monday its Loomis division would sell a cash handling unit in Britain to a British banking venture, resulting in a loss of about 160 million Swedish crowns (12.4 million pounds).

The unit, Loomis Cash Management (LCM), is being sold to a joint venture owned by Barclays and HSBC called Vaultex UK. Securitas had previously said it planned to hand back its stake in the troubled unit to the two banks.

"The sale of the fixed assets and the operations will result in a loss of approximately 160 Swedish crowns due to a lower transaction price than book value and a provision made for warranties agreed with the buyer," it said.

Securitas shares opened higher in the wake of news of the deal and were up 5.4 percent to 88.50 crowns by 0824 versus a 1.5 percent gain in the Stockholm stock exchange broad blue chip OMXS30 <.OMXS30> index.

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The loss will be accounted for in the fourth quarter 2007. LCM is subject to internal and external investigations into accounting discrepancies at the unit in recent years.

The issue has dogged Securitas in recent quarters and the group was forced to make a provision of 824 million crowns related to the flawed accounting at the end of last year.

The Bank of England’s probe of the unit is still not concluded, Securitas said.

The group said a final run-through of all cash at the unit had been carried out last week, the result of which would be presented, along with the reconciliation of all accounts, at the latest in time for the group’s full-year earnings report due on February 12 next year.

The firm would then determine if any changes would be made to the size of the provision, it added.

Loomis UK will after the sale continue to focus on cash transport and cash processing, the firm said.

(Reporting by Niklas Pollard; Editing by Paul Bolding)

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