By Kate Holton and Sarah Young
LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's Serco announced a rights issue of up to 550 million pounds ($874.5 million) after cutting its profit forecast and taking a 1.5-billion-pound impairment charge, wiping a third off its share price.
The unscheduled announcement, which also included a plan to cancel the dividend, sent the shares down as much as 35 percent.
The strategy and the writedown follow a review by new Chief Executive Rupert Soames to tackle a string of failed contracts.
The cut to the outlook is the fourth such downgrade in 12 months.
With current trading deteriorating, Serco plans to focus on providing government services instead of private contracts. It will sell assets and seek to renegotiate new terms with its lenders.
"We are able to provide an initial estimate of the impairments, write-downs and onerous contract provisions that are likely to be required at year end," Soames said in the release.
"Whilst it is a bitter pill, it is better for all concerned that we swallow it now and establish a really solid foundation on which to build Serco's future."
Serco runs services in 30 countries but generates almost half its revenue in Britain. Its reputation was rocked last year when alongside rival G4S it was found to have charged Britain for monitoring criminals who were dead, in prison or never tagged, sparking the exit of its CEO, a fine and a ban on new work that ended in January.
It was forced to raise 170 million pounds via a placing in April to help shore up its finances after a collapse in profits.
"Serco's new top team has bitten the bullet and revealed the full extent of Serco's over optimistic accounting and strategic blunders which will trigger a substantial write-off," said Whitman Howard analyst Stephen Rawlinson.
"This news was expected but we expect the extent of the damage was not."
Serco cut its forecast for 2014 adjusted operating profit by around 20 million pounds to a target of between 130 million to 140 million pounds. It also cut its 2015 outlook.
The group's market valuation at the close on Friday was 1.7 billion pounds.
(Additional reporting by Li-Mei Hoang and Neil Maidment; editing by James Davey and)