Wood Now Part of Sidara

Sidara Ltd said Tuesday it had completed its acquisition of John Wood Group PLC, in a lifesaving deal that valued the energy and industrial engineering and consulting company at 30 pence per share.

Aberdeen, Scotland-based Wood remains “a standalone business while benefiting from Sidara’s global scale and long-term owner-operator mindset”, Sidara, a Dubai-based collaborative of design, engineering and consulting firms, said in an online statement.

“The combined group generates over $8.5 billion in revenue across all geographies, with approximately 40 percent in North America and 20 percent in each of Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and Asia Pacific”, Sidara said, noting the collaborative now comprises over 55,000 professionals.

Sidara chair and chief executive Talal Shair called the purchase “the most ambitious venture” in the group’s history.

Sidara has agreed to inject $450 in capital into Wood, according to the agreed terms published on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) August 29, 2025. Wood had also negotiated terms with existing lenders as part of the conditions for Sidara’s acquisition.  

The transaction was implemented as a court-sanctioned scheme under which Sidara’s offer would become binding on Wood shareholders irrespective of whether they would vote for the acquisition, though the offer did pass the shareholder vote November 17, 2025. Wood announced last Friday the Court of Session in Edinburgh had approved the scheme.

Wood confirmed in Friday’s announcement CEO Iain Torrens was to resign from Wood along with several non-executive directors upon the completion of Sidara’s acquisition. Neil Bruce, a non-executive director at Sidara, is now Wood CEO.

Wood previously acknowledged it had not had a sustainable free cash flow since 2017 due to loss-making contracts, restructuring charges, regulatory fines and litigation payments.

While negotiating a deal with Sidara last year, the United Kingdom Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) also launched a probe into Wood’s accounting practices and the LSE suspended its stock for failure to meet a deadline to report audited accounts.

On Wednesday the FCA announced a GBP 12.99 million ($17.45) fine against Wood “for publishing inaccurate information in its financial results”. The fine reflects a 30 percent discount, for which would qualified after agreeing to resolve the case “at an early stage”, the FCA said. 

Responding to the result of the FCA investigation, Wood said in a statement on its website the issues found by the FCA were “consistent” with those uncovered by a review that Wood had commissioned from Deloitte. “The company has developed a remediation and governance action plan to address the issues identified in the Independent Review [by Deloitte] and has taken steps to implement the plan, as noted by the FCA in its findings”, Wood said.

In other efforts to stabilize finances, Wood on December 30, 2025 completed the sale of its 50 percent stake in RWG (Repair & Overhauls) Ltd to Siemens Energy Global GmbH & Co KG for $151 million and the sale of its United Kingdom transmission and distribution engineering business to UI Telecoms & Power Holdco Ltd for around $77.7 million.

According to its latest financial and operational report on October 30, 2025, which included adjustments to satisfy the FCA, Wood logged $2.42 billion in revenue for the first half of 2025, down 13.3 percent from the first six months of 2024. It blamed the decline on “some delays in key client programs in Projects and Operations” and “lower pass-through activity in Projects”.

Moreover, trading was impacted by “uncertainty around Wood’s financial position which led to some delays in progressing bids and starting secured work”, the results statement said.

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