Helphire loses one of its largest insurance firms

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Helphire said that the timing of the actual ending of the contract had not yet been agreed but added that Saga and the AA made up 22% of current volumes in terms of insurance cases that it chases up, and around 11% of its revenues.

New management brought in over the past six months raised £50 million through a share issue in April but today said it expects to see an extra £82 million of exceptional charges in the second half of the year, which ended in June. That would be on top of the £62.3 million of charges in the first half.

Among the new exceptional charges are £18 million for unwinding Helphire's relationship with its in-house firms of lawyers, £12 million for scrapping a new company-wide IT system, £8 million worth of goodwill write-downs on acquisitions and £29 million that management reckons it will not be able to get back from old insurance claims.