Wood Group (WG.) has announced results for the 2022 calendar year and that the “transformed” group is already delivering – noting it has “started 2023 with good momentum… order book for delivery in 2023 is up 10%”.
The FY22 numbers from Wood Group (WG.) today had good, less good and “we are currently in an offer period” uncertainty angles. On the latter point, it cannot comment further on the surprise Apollo bid approach last month. I am not smart enough to predict bid outcomes, but what I do observe is that if you hold Wood Group shares it is all about the turnaround plan its capital markets day five months ago excited me so much about. And on that basis, the newish CEO and the old school CFO are doing a good job.
Wood Group (WG.) has announced that it has requested and been granted an extension from the Takeover Panel until 5pm on 19th April for Apollo to announce a firm intention to make an offer or not.
Have you had investment fun this week? Probably not, but such is life in the investment markets. What really matters with investment volatility, geopolitical concerns and every other scenario which means lower rather than higher equity prices, is how you react. In a few month's time or the next year or two, I will know whether it was smart to put some of my (fairly limited) cash back into the markets.
Re-recommended at a 155p offer price in July after we previously banked a more than 40%, less than 7 months, offer-to-bid gain on the shares, Wood Group (WG.) has noted “recent speculation” and confirmed that it has received three possible cash offer proposals from Apollo Global Management, the most recent of which was at 230p per share and unanimously rejected by the board as it considers it “significantly undervalued the repositioned group's prospects”.
On the final day of 2022, I made Wood Group (WG.) one of my tips of the year 2023. And whilst, like any truthful investor, I don’t get every tip correct, this one is working out quite well. I know many of you are big Guardian newspaper readers, but it took me until early this morning to read the story from yesterday evening that “John Wood Group rejects takeover bids from US private equity firm Apollo…has until 22 March to announce a firm intention to make a takeover offer or walk away”. How interesting!
Wood Group (WG.) has issued a trading update for the 2022 calendar year, including emphasising “underlying revenue growth… led by Operations and Consulting with a return to growth in H2 in Projects” and that it has “attractive growth prospects”.
A new week, a new suspension, as Joules Group (JOUL), the “true premium lifestyle brand with an authentic heritage”, announced an “Intention to Appoint Administrators and Suspension of Trading in Shares". Is it a huge surprise? Not really (and you can see now why Next plc (NXT) decided not to take a stake a few months ago). Meanwhile, and back to shares I do actually own, I see that Wood Group (WG.) is handing out $115 million in a “Settlement of Enterprise litigation case”. But the shares are only down 1% or so today.
Wood Group (WG.) has announced its results for the first half of 2022 and that it expects an improved performance in the second half, including being helped by an improvement in its Turbines joint ventures.
Just under three months ago, I observed that “Wood Group (WG.) won’t re-join the FTSE 100, but that’s not the forward story…” and talked about the opportunities and challenges of “one of the world’s leading consulting and engineering companies operating across Energy and the Built Environment”. And is the new CEO working on a positive surprise, as I hoped a quarter or so ago, too?
Last year we banked a more than 40%, less than 7 months, offer-to-bid gain on Wood Group (WG.) at 300.3p. That proved good timing with the shares eventually falling back towards 150p before then recovering to above 250p again. However, they are now available at a 155p offer price and are again a Buy.
I am sure there will be some investors who are excited to hear that Centrica (CNA) shares are back to rejoin the FTSE 100, whilst others are disappointed that ITV (ITV) and Royal Mail (RMG) shares - among others - are exiting. None of the three interest me at the moment, but I was a bit disappointed that Johnson Matthey (JMAT) shares have not been quite strong enough to rejoin. Maybe that is coming next quarter as I believe the stock is cheap (as noted last week HERE). Another stock which did not return to the FTSE 100 (and frankly I don’t think it ever will) was Wood Group (WG.) but it has made a noteworthy announcement today…
