Wood shareholders vote in favour of £207m Sidara takeover

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SHAREHOLDERS at struggling engineering group Wood have approved a takeover by Dubai-based Sidara, moving the year-long acquisition saga a step closer to completion.

At yesterday’s general meeting, 90% of shareholders backed Wood’s directors in approving Sidara’s £207m (US$272m) takeover – a stark contrast to the company’s £5.3bn peak valuation in 2018, marking a collapse of more than 95%. The deal will see the London stock exchange-listed company become privately owned by the UAE-based firm.  

The acquisition, agreed with Wood’s directors in August, also values the company at less than 15% of Sidara’s initial offer last year. The takeover is expected to be rubber-stamped by a court in the first half of 2026 and Wood and Sidara have set a hard deadline of 1 March 2027 for full completion of the process. Sidara plans to inject US$450m into Wood during the transition period.

Wood’s share price has been tumbling since Sidara withdrew its initial £1.5bn offer last August, citing “geopolitical risks and concerns”. In February, an independent Deloitte review revealed that Wood had misled auditors for several years. The company remains under investigation by the Financial Conduct Authority. In March, directors said the company had failed to generate sustainable cash flow since 2017, when Wood acquired Amec Foster Wheeler for £2.2bn.

Wood was founded in 1982 in Aberdeen, Scotland, by Ian Wood and grew into a major player in the North Sea oil and gas industry. It subsequently became known around the world as a major engineering consultancy for oil and gas, also carrying out contracts in the chemicals, renewables, minerals and pharmaceuticals sectors. In 2013, the company employed more than 50,000 people globally, but this has fallen to around 35,000 across 60 countries today, as financial pressures have forced it to sell off “non-core” parts of its business.

Sidara, meanwhile, currently employs 21,500 people across 69 countries and has ambitions to become a leading global consultancy. Sidara plans to return Wood to its original “John Wood Group” trading name and will brand the business as Sidara’s engineering and materials division.

Despite the financial problems over the last year, Wood has continued to win contracts around the world, including front-end engineering and design (FEED) work for a plant in Belgium that will produce plastics from methanol, engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) work on Shell’s Penguins FPSO in the North Sea, and an EPC contract to reduce flaring in Iraq.