Outsourcing company Capita, which employs several hundred people at its life and pensions centre in Bishop's Cleeve, has reported annual losses before tax of £513.1 million.

It says its 2017 full year results were impacted by one-off costs of £850.7 million.

Capita says its expects to raise £701 million through a rights issue that will help fund the reorganisation of the company.

The group's underlying revenue decreased by 4.3 per cent to £4,167.9m (2016: £4,357.3m).

Capita said: "Capita continues to expect that its underlying pre-tax profits, before significant new contracts, restructuring costs and implementation costs of the strategy will be between £270 million and £300 million for the year ending 31 December, 2018.

"Capita's objective is to become a more focused and predictable, client-centric company, generating sustainable free cash flow. Capita believes that under its new strategy, through introducing greater rigour in how it operates, together with re-focusing the business on its areas of strength, it will deliver enhanced performance through increased simplification, efficiency, standardisation and focus.

"The Rights Issue forms a key component of the new strategy and is being undertaken in order to provide Capita with a sustainable capital base to support its clients and operations.

"Our revenue mix in 2017 was 70 per cent long term contracts, 16 per cent short term contracts of up to 2 years and 14 per cent transactional. "