John Wood to hand £665m to investors
OIL field services provider John Wood Group is to return £665m to its shareholders through a one-off return of £1.40 per share, it said yesterday.
The cash will be released to all shareholders as of 1 July through an issue of unlisted B and C shares that either pay a dividend or are bought back from shareholders.
The share scheme was chosen to allow shareholders to elect to receive the money as income, immediate capital, deferred capital or any combination of the three, depending on their need or tax status.
The disbursement is part of Wood Group’s £1.08bn programme to return capital to its investors after it successfully sold its well support unit to General Electric for $2.8bn (£1.75bn) in February.
It has already released £412m through a share tender offer last month, which pushed its shares above 700p. It said at the time that any funds not returned via that offer would be disbursed through such a share scheme.
Shareholders will vote to approve the scheme at a general meeting on 30 June.
If the scheme is approved, cheques would be sent out on 14 July and Wood Group shares will trade ex dividend as of 4 July.
Shares lifted slightly to 641p yesterday after the announcement, giving the firm a market capitalisation of £3.37bn.