Questor share tip: Marathon slog back from Olympic staffing scandal As analysts pointed out yesterday, G4S management said that the UK public sector was one of the more active parts of its bidding pipeline at an investor day held in May. Tendering for contracts at major events may also be a problem for the group - especially in the near term. So the large fall in G4S's market valuation is representative of the significant uncertainty surrounding the company's prospects. This uncertainty not only relates to contract wins, but the future of Nick Buckles, its chief executive, too. Mr Buckles will appear in Parliament today. He is giving evidence to the home affairs committee as part of their inquiries into Olympic security. A solid performance here appears necessary if Mr Buckles is to survive, given the recent aborted merger with Denmark's ISS. G4S's annual report declares that the group has operations in more than 125 countries and has 657,000 employees. It is also the largest employer in the FTSE 100. Critics are now likely to argue that this size is part of the problem and the company has simply become too large to manage. G4S will have to prove otherwise, despite being obviously overstretched by the Olympic contract, to regain investor confidence. Part of the group's stated strategy is to bid for larger contracts and outsourcing services where it can "take responsibility for an increasing range of outsourced services, have longer-term contracts where we can help customers to reduce risk, improve financial performance, protect critical assets, improve customer service or protect reputations." The events of the last week may have an impact on this aim. G4S shares are now trading on a December 2012 earnings multiple of 10.6 times, falling to 9.4 next year. The prospective yield is 3.6pc rising to 4pc. This looks cheap, but its is probably about right given the challenge of rebuilding trust that lies ahead. Any share price recovery is likely to be slow, as the market will need to be convinced that it can still win public sector contracts and that the private sector still has confidence in the company. The last time Questor said buy the shares was on Nov 8 2010 at 258.9p - close to the current share price. Investors should hold for now, but keep one eye on developments. It is possible things could get worse before they get better.