Rolls-Royce slides on SFO reports

Shares in Rolls-Royce were sliding downwards on Thursday morning, after reports emerged that the Serious Fraud Office has widened the scope of its investigation into the aerospace engineering firm.

The FTSE 100 firm did watch its stock lose as much as 3% in morning trading, though it has since retraced some of those losses and was last down 2.24% at 641.33p.

On Thursday morning, the Financial Times reported that the SFO probe was now reaching into Rolls’ former energy operations in Nigeria.

The FT said the office was looking into whether the company was involved in bribery of officials in Nigeria, up to 2013.

Rolls-Royce first revealed the SFO investigation in 2013 - at the time it was investigating possible bribery and corruption in China and Indonesia.

No comment has been forthcoming from the SFO on the latest report.

Rolls-Royce said it was fully cooperating with authorities, though they would not go any further as the investigation was ongoing.

“Concerns about bribery and corruption involving intermediaries in a number of overseas markets remain subject to examination by the SFO and other authorities,” a spokesperson was quotes as saying.

“We are cooperating with the authorities.”