Can Kier avoid collapse?

Kier, the engineering group, has had to bring forward a strategic review to placate anxious investors. What happens next? Alex Rankine reports.

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What if Crossrail 2 doesn't happen?
(Image credit: Credit: Paul Baldesare / Alamy Stock Photo)

Will it be a case of "Kier today, gone tomorrow"? asks Alistair Osborne in The Times. New chief executive Andrew Davies, who has only been in the post for eight weeks, has been forced to rush out the publication of a strategic review a month early to calm markets still reeling from this month's profit warning. High debt levels have left the engineering group looking "increasingly rickety" and have prompted comparisons to failed outsourcers Carillion and Interserve. The group's net debt at the end of June will be between £420m and £450m. "Not bad for a company now valued at just £175m".

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Markets editor

Alex is an investment writer who has been contributing to MoneyWeek since 2015. He has been the magazine’s markets editor since 2019. 

Alex has a passion for demystifying the often arcane world of finance for a general readership. While financial media tends to focus compulsively on the latest trend, the best opportunities can lie forgotten elsewhere. 

He is especially interested in European equities – where his fluent French helps him to cover the continent’s largest bourse – and emerging markets, where his experience living in Beijing, and conversational Chinese, prove useful. 

Hailing from Leeds, he studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at the University of Oxford. He also holds a Master of Public Health from the University of Manchester.