Sharewatch

Airport owner and developer Wiggins has had a couple of weeks it would rather forget. First, the company announced two weeks ago that its new chairman, Irving Kuczynski, would not be taking up his new position due to a squabble over how much time he would spend working for Wiggins.

Reports said US-based Kuczynski was not prepared to spend his working week in the UK, as Wiggins wanted, as he did not want to be away from his family and his other business interests.

But worse was to come last week when Wiggins revealed that it had to reschedule its debt repayments. In a statement to the market last week, the company said it would repay only £1.5m instead of £3m to lenders.

The balance will be paid next year.

These nuggets of bad news sent the share price tumbling as analysts and investors raised concerns about the financial health of the group and its management structure. Shares fell 26% last week to just 4p – 90% down on Wiggins' three-year high of 46p.

It was a bad week in general for the construction sector, with falls far outweighing the rises (see graph).