G4S, the world's largest security services firm, plans to raise about £600 million by selling shares and assets as its new boss seeks to restore its battered reputation.
Chief Executive Ashley Almanza, a former executive at oil and gas firm BG Group, was promoted from finance chief in June after a string of blunders by his predecessor.
They included a failed takeover bid in 2011, a botched contract to staff the 2012 Olympics and a profit warning in May.
Today he said he would give a detailed plan in November, but that initial measures should help to avoid a costly credit-rating downgrade and improve profit margins.
These include the immediate sale of new shares to raise around £350 million and plans to sell some lower-margin businesses to help fund expansion in faster-growing markets.
Panmure Gordon analyst Mike Allen welcomed Mr Almanza's debut announcement as chief executive.
"We applaud the quick work undertaken by management to re-structure the group and shore up the balance sheet," he said.
At 12.20pm Irish time G4S shares were up 3.6% at 254.27p, the biggest rise by a UK blue-chip company and reversing early losses.
Shares often fall following the announcement of equity fundraisings, as these cut earnings per share for investors.
G4S, which runs services from managing prisons and transporting cash to guarding the tennis at Wimbledon, aims to benefit from a trend among cash-strapped governments and businesses to outsource security work.
However it has come under pressure as governments in developed markets cut services.
Furthermore the British government - a key client - is refusing to award G4S new work pending a review of all existing contracts after an audit found it and rival Serco charged for tagging criminals who were either dead, in prison or never tagged in the first place.
G4S said its first-half operating profit margin slipped to 5.5% from 5.9% in the same period last year, reflecting a lost prison contract in the Netherlands and squeezed pricing in Britain and elsewhere in Europe.
Net debt rose to £1.95 billion as of 30 June, some 3.2 times earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation compared with a target of 2-2.5 times.
However the group, which wants to grow revenue in developing markets in Asia, Africa and Latin America from a third to half of its total, said it had a global sales pipeline of £4 billion.
It did not provide details, but noted strong demand from financial services, mining and government sectors in Africa.
"G4S has excellent market positions, particularly in developing markets and as a result of which we have very material growth opportunities," Mr Almanza said, ruling out more radical suggestions like spinning off G4S's cash security unit.
G4S, which leads rival Sweden's Securitas by sales, said it was placing 140.9 million new ordinary shares representing up to 9.99% of its existing share capital with new and existing investors via an accelerated bookbuild.
The company said its largest shareholder, Invesco, would take part in the fundraising. Citigroup, JP Morgan and Barclays are joint bookrunners for the share sale.
G4S also said the sale of businesses, likely to be in developed markets, could raise up to £250 million in the next year, and that it would restructure other units in a group which spans 125 countries in order to improve margins.
Today - and included in the asset sale total - G4S said it had agreed to sell its Canadian cash security and Colombia Data solutions businesses for £100 million pounds. The sale of its US businesses was ongoing, it added.
G4S said it had taken a one-off charge of £180 million following a review of its assets and that it had started restructuring programmes - including cutting staff numbers and ending some lower-margin services - in Britain, Ireland and Europe at a cost of £30-35 million over 2013 and 2014.
It declined to give an operating margin target.
Almanza's arrival is part of a major management overhaul since the furore over the Olympics contract, when G4S failed to provide enough security staff, with a chief operating officer appointed to assess risk, UK bosses replaced, and Himanshu Raja recruited as finance chief from software firm Misys.
G4S, whose shareholder roster includes activist investor Cevian Capital and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, said it made a first-half operating profit of £201 million, little changed from a restated £202 million the same time last year, with turnover up 7.2% to £3.65 billion.
Earlier the company announced that it had appointed Misys's Himanshu Raja as its chief financial officer to help drive "improved execution" at the firm.
Mr Raja will join G4S on 7 October, the company said.
He only joined financial software provider Misys as CFO in February and has held finance roles at Logica and BT Group.
