Britain’s Wood Plc to sell Built Environment division, reaffirms outlook

(Reuters) -British oilfield services and engineering firm Wood Plc reaffirmed its annual revenue and core earnings forecasts on Thursday, and said selling a division under its consulting business is the best option to deliver value for shareholders,

The company added that it expects activity levels across its business to improve in 2022.

“While we have seen a stabilisation in market conditions during 2021, the scale of recovery was below our original expectations due to the deferral of activity and delays in new awards,” Wood Plc said.

Although major oil companies have resumed increasing their spending budgets following higher oil and gas prices, the emergence of the Omicron coronavirus variant has cast a shadow on the industry’s trajectory ahead.

The Aberdeen-based company, which started a strategic review of the Built Environment division in November, said its sales agreement is expected to be announced in the second quarter.

Bloomberg News reported on Wednesday that the unit could be valued at about 2 billion pounds ($2.74 billion) in a deal, citing people familiar with the matter.

The Built Environment business has about 7,000 employees and operates across government, transportation, water, industrial, energy and mining markets. It generated revenue of $1.3 billion and core earnings of about $150 million in 2021.

($1 = 0.7287 pounds)

(Reporting by Shanima A in Bengaluru; editing by Uttaresh.V)