Turnover advanced 2.8% to £3.3bn in the six months to June 30, while profit before interest and tax was up 4.9% at £193mln.

It also has outsourcing contracts from companies and governments to place, for example, police and prison officers where there are shortages, and “supports justice and security strategies” for governments of countries in conflict, says G4S.

Shares in G4S, which have fallen 14 percent since they reached a near two-year high in April, were trading down 0.7 percent at 265 pence by 0809 GMT, outperforming a 1.5 percent fall in the FTSE 100 index on Wednesday.

The “actual”, unvarnished numbers, however, made grimmer reading, and were riddled with one offs, including a £21mln in goodwill impairments and a £16mln restructuring charges.

However, overall revenues nudged up by 1 per cent to £3.4bn.

G4S CEO Ashley Almanza said, “We continue to make good progress with our strategic plans, investing in growth and productivity programmes which underpinned strong growth in our pipeline and a 10.5% increase in underlying earnings”.

The business said the increase was driven by contract wins in the United States and emerging markets in Asia, the Middle East and Latin America.

It added: “Our sales, new contract mobilisation and on-going productivity programmes provided increasingly good momentum through the first half and this is expected to deliver further improvements in the group’s performance in the second half”.