Wood Group Financial Review Uncovers ‘Cultural Failings’ in Projects Business

U.Okay. engineer-contractor Wooden Group plc says a monetary evaluate uncovered “materials weaknesses and failures” within the monetary tradition of its initiatives enterprise unit. Consequently, the Aberdeen, Scotland-based agency says it is going to seemingly not launch its year-end 2024 monetary report in April as beforehand scheduled and that it expects to droop buying and selling of its inventory through the delay.

Wooden introduced final November that it could endure an unbiased monetary evaluate by monetary advisor Deloitte. On March 31, Wooden shared some of those preliminary findings, together with that auditors discovered points with some contracts and accounting requirements in its initiatives unit. The uncovered points included “inappropriate administration strain and override to keep up beforehand reported positions” and over-optimism, it says.

The corporate didn’t disclose the names, areas, prices or scopes of these initiatives. Wooden specializes primarily within the world vitality sector.

Wooden says it expects to make some prior 12 months changes to its revenue assertion and steadiness sheet for 2022, 2023 and the primary half of 2024. However given the timing and the work wanted to conclude the evaluate, the corporate expects to not publish its annual monetary report April 30 and can droop share buying and selling from then till the evaluate is full. 

“We’re dedicated to implementing an in depth remediation plan … to proceed to strengthen the group’s monetary tradition, governance and controls,” the corporate says in an announcement.

Auditors recognized no materials points with Wooden’s consulting or operations enterprise items, in accordance with Wooden.

There was “important change” inside the firm because the interval lined by the evaluate, Wooden contends. In February, former company CFO Arvind Balan resigned after lower than a 12 months within the position following discovery of “incorrect description of his skilled {qualifications}.” The corporate appointed Iain Torrens as interim CFO shortly after. 

“This can be a important interval for Wooden and Iain is a seasoned CFO with the required capital markets expertise and confirmed management in refinancing and monetary reporting, in addition to danger administration, audit and compliance,” Wooden CEO Ken Gilmartin mentioned in an announcement on the time. 

Wooden, which ranks No. 10 on ENR’s Top 225 International Design Firms, operates in additional than 60 international locations. Its U.S. operations are based mostly in Houston, with a complete of 25 places of work throughout the nation. 

The preliminary monetary evaluate findings come as Wooden is going through a attainable buyout by Dubai-based engineering agency Sidara, which ranks No. 9 on ENR’s worldwide design companies record. After making a number of bids to take over Wooden, Sidara withdrew a $2.03-billion offer final August. 

However in February, the businesses introduced that Sidara was renewing its effort for a attainable money supply to accumulate Wooden. On March 24, the businesses mentioned discussions had been nonetheless underway, they usually prolonged the deadline for Sidara to make a suggestion till April 17. 

Wooden beforehand sold its environmental business to Montreal-based WSP International Inc. for $1.8 billion in 2022.