G4S

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G4S plc

logo
legal form Public limited company
ISIN GB00B01FLG62
founding 1901
Seat Crawley , UK
management Ashley Almanza (CEO) since June 1, 2013
Number of employees 558,000
sales £ 7.672 billion (2013)
Branch Services
Website www.g4s.com
As of December 31, 2019

G4S plc (formerly Group 4 Securicor ) is a British company headquartered in Crawley in the county of West Sussex in England . It is one of the largest security companies in the world.

Key figures

MB Sprinter of G4S (Group 4 Securicor)

The G4S group operates in over 120 countries. The predecessor company of today's G4S was founded in 1901. On June 1, 2007, Group 4 Securicor plc was renamed G4S plc .

The company has around 7,000 employees in Germany. The merger with Securicor made the German offshoot the second largest security company in the German market. Areas of activity in Germany are specifically money and valuables services, security services, security technology and banking services.

In Austria, Secure Solutions AG (formerly Wach- und Schließgesellschaft Wien GmbH ) is the largest subsidiary. It employs around 3,000 people, 1,500 of them at the company's headquarters in Vienna.

Company history

Origins

G4S has its oldest origins in a security service in Copenhagen that was founded in 1901 by Marius Hogrefe, originally known as Kjøbenhavn Frederiksberg Nattevagt and later renamed Falck . 1993 merged the security company Wien GmbH, an Austrian company founded in 1904, with the Group 4, one in the 1960s founded -Jahren British security company. In 2000, Group 4 was merged with Falck to form Group 4 Falck . In 2002, Group 4 Falck bought the American company Wackenhut. In 2004 Group 4 Falck merged with Securicor , a security company founded in London in 1935, to form G4S .

Recent history of G4S

The German branch of G4S called Geld- und Wertdienste changed hands on January 5, 2007, and the parent company sold it to DBI Holding. G4S supported the independence of the sold G4S Geld- und Wertdienste GmbH by taking over certain old liabilities in the amount of approx. 8 million euros and a seller loan in the amount of 7.9 million euros. The share transfer took place on January 8, 2007; The parties have agreed not to disclose the transaction volume.

At the beginning of 2008, G4S announced its withdrawal from the market in France and Germany. One of the largest security services, Securitas AB , expressed interest in the takeover of G4S in these countries. In April 2008 the technology division G4S Sicherheitssysteme was sold to the Securitas subsidiary Securitas Systems GmbH with the approval of the Federal Cartel Office in Germany.

A proposed acquisition of the Danish company ISS A / S for 5.2 billion British pounds was canceled in early November 2011 after the shareholders of G4S refused to give their consent.

In February 2012 it was announced that G4S would take over a large part of the police tasks in Lincoln , the capital of the central English county of Lincolnshire , from April 2012 . G4S is to build a new, complete police station, manage it completely and take over all tasks that arise, whereby the management of the station and the execution of arrests are still reserved for state police officers. As early as 1992, G4S opened Europe's first private prison in the English county of Yorkshire .

In July 2012, G4S, which had been commissioned to secure the 2012 Summer Olympics in London for £ 284 million, had to admit just two weeks in advance that it would not be able to fully fulfill the task due to a lack of staff and management errors. The British Army then provided 3,500 men and the helicopter carrier HMS Ocean to partially take over the tasks.

G4S Austria has been looking after a prison in Austria for the first time since 2014: the newly built detention center in Vordernberg . The award of such matters to the private company caused a lot of criticism.

criticism

The death of Angolan Jimmy Mubenga, tortured by three G4S employees, during his deportation from Great Britain with British Airways on the evening of October 12, 2010 revived the debate about the use of private security companies and the practices of direct coercion during air deportations . According to information from passengers on the flight, Mubenga is said to have complained of breathing problems. The danger of death from suffocation through breathing-obstructing techniques (several G4S employees forcefully depressing the upper body for several minutes) is known from several previous air deportation cases and could probably have been prevented by the use of appropriately qualified security personnel. The British Home Office has since terminated the contract with G4S.

Since G4S, as the world's largest private security service provider, is involved in numerous human rights violations, the company was nominated in 2013 for the negative Public Eye Award , which is presented as part of a counter-event to the World Economic Forum .

The international campaign Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) calls for a boycott of G4S because they operate torture centers in Israel. Prisons and military bases are being equipped and guarded in Israel and the West Bank , including Ofer Prison . After protests, etc. a. G4S also announced from Desmond Tutu in June 2014 that this collaboration would expire. The British Labor Party also joined the boycott in 2015, but had difficulties finding a replacement to secure its own events. In August 2016 it was announced that G4S Israel would be sold to the private action fund FIMI. "Economic reasons" are given for this, not the calls for boycotts.

The South African Trauma Center for Survivors of Violence and Torture (TCSVT, in German " Trauma Center for Survivors of Violence and Torture ") announced on November 6, 2013 that it would join the campaign and terminate its cooperation with the security company. The reason given was that dozens of inmates at G4S Prison in Mangaung were tortured with electric shocks and forced injections. The BBC exposed the crimes in October 2013, citing a study by the Witwatersrand University .

There is a special “Stop G4S” activist group in England.

October 2013 G4S Austria dismissed one for the Vienna Burgtheater used usher after he had publicly expressed the human rights violations of his employer in a short protest speech. As a result, there was a demand to terminate the contract with the company.

Special occurrences

Västberga helicopter robbery

G4S money depot in Västberga

On September 23, 2009, what was known as the “most spectacular robbery in Swedish history” occurred in a company's money depot in Västberga , a suburb of the Swedish capital Stockholm . Several perpetrators landed on the roof of the depot in a helicopter and penetrated the building from there. The perpetrators captured 39 million Swedish kronor , the equivalent of around 4.1 million euros.

literature

  • William Langewiesche : Security and Mercenaries. The world's largest private security company in action . in Lettre International 105, summer 2014, p. 60 ff. (contains a compact history of the company)

Web links

Commons : G4S  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ https://www.g4s.com/who-we-are/our-people/our-employees/
  2. ↑ https://www.g4s.com/-/media/g4s/corporate/files/financial-presentations/2020/g4s-2019-full-year-preliminary-results-announcement.ashx?la=en&hash=1E5FF1367930F8D2324776D9BF20C096&hash23F9306F8FF13
  3. ↑ G4S plc (Formerly Group 4 Securicor plc): Change of Name ( Memento from September 1, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  4. ↑ a b From the flashlight to high tech security. (PDF; 8.7 MB) In: Wiener Wirtschaft 36th year, no.11 Vienna Chamber of Commerce, March 16, 2012, p. 20 , accessed on November 4, 2012 .
  5. ↑ a b G4S History . G4s.com. Archived from the original on April 28, 2011. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved November 4, 2012. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.g4s.com
  6. ↑ Falck buys Wackenhut Security . In: New York Times . March 9, 2002. Retrieved November 4, 2012.
  7. ↑ Securicor - Merger of Securicor and Group 4 Falck now completed. pressrelations GmbH, July 20, 2004, accessed on November 4, 2012 .
  8. ↑ Divestment of Cognisa Transportation Inc and G4S Cash Services (Germany) ( Memento from September 28, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  9. ↑ Linklaters advises Group 4 Securicor on the sale of G4S Geld- und Wertdienste GmbH ( Memento from September 28, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  10. ↑ https://www.theguardian.com/business/2011/nov/01/g4s-iss-takeover-fails G4S board fails to secure ISS takeover (November 1, 2011)
  11. ↑ UK Private Police Station - G4S, Take Over! ; Mirror online; February 18, 2012; Retrieved February 18, 2012
  12. ↑ Overstrained security company: Marines should check bags of Olympic fans ; Mirror online; July 12, 2012; Retrieved July 17, 2012
  13. ^ Detention camp Vordernberg: Ernst Strasser and the G4S , profile on October 22, 2013
  14. ^ The Guardian, Tragedy of Mubenga
  15. ^ G4S boycott page from BDS South Africa ( Memento from February 20, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  16. ↑ G4S “to end” Israel prison contracts as pressure mounts over torture complicity , Ali Abuneh on June 6, 2014
  17. ↑ G4S to end Israeli jail contracts within three years , Financial Times on June 5, 2016
  18. ↑ Labor may be forced to cancel party conference unless deal is signed with new security company , The Telegraph on August 10, 2016
  19. ^ Private Equity Fund FIMI in Talks to Buy G4S Israel , Ha-Aretz on August 11, 2016
  20. ^ BDS South Africa, Statement of the Trauma Center ( Memento from December 3, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  21. ↑ BBC News: 'Shocking' abuse claims at South Africa's Mangaung prison , accessed November 17, 2013.
  22. ↑ Stop G4S
  23. ^ Billeteur was dismissed after a protest speech , Kurier on October 19, 2013
  24. ^ Theater: Greens for dissolving the G4S contracts , ORF.at on October 25, 2013