Wood Group hands out more cash

More cash is heading the way of Wood Group shareholders after the oil services specialist upped its dividend last year by 10% despite profits falling slightly.Wood has already promised to return at least $1.7bn, or about 195p per share, after the sale of its well support operations to General Electric, but it also upped the dividend after a cash inflow of $345m last year.Profits in 2010 fell by 4% to $255m, from $265m, after a one-charge of $27.6m. Revenue rose by 3% to $5.06bn. The firm says it saw good overall revenue growth in the oil operating- related activities and an improving market for capital expenditure - related businesses.Wood anticipates an improvement in market conditions in the oil businesses in 2011 with the problems highlighted by BP's Gulf of Mexico disaster leading to a tightening of safety and procedures across the sector. Wood Group, with the recently acquired PSN, will be the global market leader in production facilities support, it says."The recovery signs in the greenfield engineering market in the second half of 2010, together with the increase in global E&P expenditure predicted for 2011 should result in good growth for our engineering businesses," it added.On the gas turbine side, the firm expects the backlog in Power Solutions and strengthening maintenance market to result in a "significantly improved EBITA performance". The dividend for the year is 11c, up 10%.