RE: What an excellent article on Sid!18 Apr 2025 11:11
Wood board criticised by ex-director
The Press and Journal (Inverness, Highlands, and Islands)18 Apr 2025BY LIZA HAMILTON
EXPERIENCE: Mike Straughen, right, with Patrick O’Brien, group executive director of MCS, which was acquired by Wood Group.
Aformer director of Aberdeen-based Wood Group has hit out at the company’s leadership, blaming years of poor decision-making for its current position as it edges closer to being taken over by a Dubai-based rival.
Mike Straughen, who previously served on the board, said he was “saddened and dismayed” by the firm’s downfall.
He accused Wood’s board and CEO of steering the firm into a “horrendous situation”.
And he said it is now under threat of being snapped up by a foreign owner on the cheap.
Mr Straughen’s comments come just days after Wood confirmed it had received a fresh non-binding takeover proposal from engineering consultancy Sidara.
This is the latest step in a long-running courtship that could result in a £242 million deal, with a further £340m to be invested into the business post-acquisition.
Wood’s board has described the proposal as “attractive” and said it was “minded to recommend” the offer to shareholders if a firm bid is made.
However, Mr Straughen, who served on Wood’s board from 2007 to 2014, was scathing.
He said the board’s actions amounted to a study in how to “screw up a perfectly good business”.
“From being a shining example of what was possible in terms of growing a hugely successful global business from humble beginnings in the north-east of Scotland, it is now under threat of being bought, very cheaply, by a privately owned Middle East entity,” he wrote in a letter to The Press and Journal.
The former director said the company’s decline was not due to external pressures such as geopolitics or the shift to net zero – but was entirely “self-inflicted”.
“Over recent years, the board and executives have shown a combination of very poor judgment, in my opinion,” he said, citing in particular the £2.2 billion acquisition of Amec-Foster Wheeler in 2017 – a deal he called “disastrous”.
Amec had previously struggled following its own merger with Foster Wheeler, and Mr Straughen argued that Wood’s leadership failed to heed the warning signs.
“You didn’t need to be a relative of Einstein to figure out that Wood would thereby be taking on these same problems,” he said.
“Following the acquisition, the Wood board clearly never got to grips with these problems and some eight years later they have finally shown their teeth and come back to bite them.
“In the meantime, the board and CEO have constantly talked up the business and suggested that they were on a clear path to recovery.”
A spokesperson for Wood said they were unable to respond to Mr Straughen’s remarks at this time.
Article Name:Wood board criticised by ex-director Publication:The Press and Journal (Inverness, Highlands, and Islands)
Sign In
Follow the stocks
