{"id":838461,"date":"2025-04-02T08:11:53","date_gmt":"2025-04-02T13:11:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/02\/wood-group-financial-review-uncovers-cultural-failings-in-projects-business\/"},"modified":"2025-04-02T08:11:53","modified_gmt":"2025-04-02T13:11:53","slug":"wood-group-financial-review-uncovers-cultural-failings-in-projects-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/02\/wood-group-financial-review-uncovers-cultural-failings-in-projects-business\/","title":{"rendered":"Wood Group Financial Review Uncovers ‘Cultural Failings’ in Projects Business"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\"Wood_Group_ENRweb.jpg\"<\/p>

\n

The report comes as UK-based Wood Group plc is facing a possible buyout by design firm Sidara, located in Dubai.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Logo courtesy Wood Group<\/em><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n

\n

U.K. engineer-contractor Wood Group plc says a financial review uncovered \u201cmaterial weaknesses and failures\u201d in the financial culture of its projects business unit. As a result, the Aberdeen, Scotland-based firm says it will likely not release its year-end 2024 financial report in April as previously scheduled and that it expects to suspend trading of its stock during the delay.<\/p>\n

Wood announced last November that it would undergo an independent financial review by financial consultant Deloitte. On March 31, Wood shared some of those preliminary findings<\/a>, including that auditors found issues with some contracts and accounting standards in its projects unit. The uncovered issues included \u201cinappropriate management pressure and override to maintain previously reported positions\u201d and over-optimism, it says.<\/p>\n

The company did not disclose the names, locations, costs or scopes of those projects. Wood specializes primarily in the global energy sector, but also does work for the pharmaceutical and mineral refining industries.<\/p>\n

Wood says it expects to make some prior year adjustments to its income statement and balance sheet for 2022, 2023 and the first half of 2024. But given the timing and the work needed to conclude the review, the company expects to not publish its annual financial report April 30 and will suspend share trading from then until the review is complete.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are committed to implementing a detailed remediation plan \u2026 to continue to strengthen the group’s financial culture, governance and controls,\u201d the company says in a statement.<\/p>\n

Auditors identified no material issues with Wood\u2019s consulting or operations business units, according to the engineer.<\/p>\n

There has been \u201csignificant change\u201d within the company since the period covered by the review, Wood contends. In February, former corporate CFO Arvind Balan resigned after less than a year in the role following discovery of \u201cincorrect description of his professional qualifications.\u201d The company appointed Iain Torrens as interim CFO shortly after.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a critical period for Wood and Iain is a seasoned CFO with the necessary capital markets experience and proven leadership in refinancing and financial reporting, as well as risk management, audit and compliance,\u201d Wood CEO Ken Gilmartin said in a statement at the time.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Wood, which ranks No. 10 on ENR\u2019s Top 225 International Design Firms<\/a>, operates in more than 60 countries and has about 35,000 staff in total, with its U.S. operations based in Houston and a total of 25 offices across the country.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The preliminary financial review findings come as Wood is facing a possible buyout by Dubai-based engineering firm Sidara, which ranks No. 9 on ENR\u2019s international design firms list. After making multiple bids to take over Wood, Sidara withdrew a $2.03-billion offer<\/a> last August.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But in February, the companies announced that Sidara was renewing its effort<\/a> for a possible cash offer to acquire Wood. On March 24, the companies said discussions were still underway, and they extended the deadline for Sidara to make an offer until April 17.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Wood previously sold its environmental business<\/a> to Montreal-based WSP Global Inc. for $1.8 billion in 2022.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\"James<\/a><\/p>\n

James Leggate is an online news editor at ENR. He has reported on a variety of issues for more than 10 years and his work has contributed to several regional Associated Press Media Editors and Murrow award wins.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Read More<\/a>
\n Luz Klemp<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The report comes as UK-based Wood Group plc is facing a possible buyout by design firm Sidara, located in Dubai.\u00a0 Logo courtesy Wood Group U.K. engineer-contractor Wood Group plc says a financial review uncovered \u201cmaterial weaknesses and failures\u201d in the financial culture of its projects business unit. As a result, the Aberdeen, Scotland-based firm says<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":838462,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[534,1222],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-838461","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-financial","8":"category-group"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/838461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=838461"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/838461\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/838462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=838461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=838461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=838461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}