RE: Perfect summary17 Nov 2021 21:12
Merryn: One of the things you say in your article is that these kind of businesses are risky and they're cyclical. Don't own one or two, own quite a few, and once you've got them don’t sell them too soon. What are your favourites in this sector?
Andrew: The easiest one, particularly for UK investors, is Petrofac. I like it because it got very bombed-out. They do oil and gas engineering. No one’s been doing any big engineering projects for the best part of a decade, so they were cyclically very bombed-out. Then to make matters worse there was a big SFO investigation into historic corruption, which they've now settled for a much lower fine than anyone thought they’d get, so they're out of the woods.
Because they've settled that they can now go and win new work. The good thing about Petrofac is they are really good what they do. In spite of the dodgy contracts and the past, they have very strong capability. The other great thing is that many of their competitors have simply gone bust in the downturn. You’ve probably seen a few of the headlines. A lot of these oil and gas services companies have just disappeared. They've hit Chapter 11.