Auditor refuses to approve Wood accounts for year leading up to Sidara takeover

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AUDITORS have refused sign-off on Wood’s financial statements for 2024, after the British engineering firm failed to rectify previous accounting misstatements that led to the company’s collapse in value last year.  

In its audit of Wood’s annual report for 2024, published last month, auditor KPMG refused to say the accounts were an accurate representation of the company’s finances.  

Accounting failures at Wood were brought to light early last year when an independent review by Deloitte revealed the company had misled auditors for several years regarding its projects team’s finances, triggering an 85% collapse in Dubai-based Sidara’s takeover offer, which was voted through by Wood shareholders last November at a final price of £207m (US$279m). KPMG blamed the accounting misstatements on pressure from “certain key personnel” to misrepresent figures. In its latest audit, KPMG reported that the risk of “management override” has now been reduced to an “acceptable level”. Wood remains under investigation by the Financial Conduct Authority.  

Deloitte’s review found that adjustments were needed to Wood’s financial statements from previous years, but KPMG said that Wood has failed to do this yet. As a result, KPMG could not verify Wood’s reported loss of US$2.8bn in 2024.  

One reason for Wood’s failure to adjust previous accounts, KPMG said, was that “knowledge of historical accounting has been lost following the departure of key finance and operational personnel who were responsible for the original judgements and estimates”.   

In addition, Wood directors refused KPMG’s request for more time to complete their audit, telling the auditor the accounts required sign-off as soon as they had been approved internally. Wood said the time constraints were imposed after the Sidara deal was agreed in August 2025 and were intended to support KPMG’s independence.