Wood Group shares fly as it readies £2bn sale of consulting business
Wood Group’s stock price has soared today, as it readies to sell off its built environment business – which could fetch several billion for the engineering and consulting giant.
While the group’s $6.4bn revenue was down 14 per cent on a like-for-like basis, due to a “significant decline in projects”, its shares price swelled by more than 20 per cent by market close.
The built environment business, which helps companies assess environmental risk, could fetch around £1.9bn pounds, according to reports.
Wood’s boss Robin Watson said the sale was “the best option to deliver value for our shareholders”.
“It will also strengthen the group as we look to capitalise on the significant opportunities ahead of us, including in energy transition and industrial decarbonisation”.
Amid a slowdown in projects, the group added that it expects activity levels to improve this year.
Wood also noted that its conventional energy and built environment units were marking the growth.
“2021 saw improving momentum across our businesses, against a backdrop of continued challenging market conditions. Together with significant growth in our order book, this enables us to start 2022 confident that activity levels are improving,” Watson said in a statement.
“While our leverage is higher than we would like, we anticipate that this will reduce significantly with proceeds from the proposed sale of our built environment business and higher activity levels.”