Wood swallows over £73m charge on Polish anti-missile project
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The John Wood Group is set to swallow a $100m (£73.6m) charge on a project in Poland, which has prompted investors to duck out of the stock today.
Wood’s share price plunged more than 11 per cent to 200p per share by early afternoon, making today its shakiest day of London trading in almost two years.
The legacy Amec Foster Wheeler project, Aegis Poland, is expected to be completed by the second half of this year, however, management anticipate the project to cost an extra £14.7m ($20m) to finalise.
The recent named losses on the missile defence facility project come on top of the previous forecast loss of around £98m ($133m).
KPMG is undergoing an external investigation and review of the project to finalise Wood’s full-year results – which have been delayed as a result.
“The troubled project has faced several delays and the current view of completion at end 2022 …is unfortunate timing given the strategic location of this facility close to the Ukrainian border,” JP Morgan analysts said in a note.
While the hit has spooked investors, Wood has maintained its January outlook for this year, expecting activity levels to improve across the business.
“2021 saw improving momentum across our businesses, against a backdrop of continued challenging market conditions. Together with significant growth in our order book, this enables us to start 2022 confident that activity levels are improving,” chief executive Robin Watson said at the time.