The Times Losers of 2026 - sadly no surprise for us.1 Jan 2026 10:17
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the losers
accounting scandals are, thankfully for investors, not all that common, but three of last year’s biggest fallers — wood group, b&m and wh smith — all suffered ****-ups in their finance departments.
in 2018 wood group, the oilfield engineer based in aberdeen, was worth more than ÂŁ5 billion, but it agreed this winter to be bought by sidara, its middle eastern rival, for ÂŁ207 million.
there was a string of nasty surprises for investors last year. an investigation into wood’s accounts by deloitte found “material identified weaknesses and failures” in its “financial culture, governance and controls”. the shares were then suspended for five months because it was late filing its financial statements. before all of that, its finance chief, arvind balan, had to resign after it emerged that his professional qualifications had been misstated because he was not actually a chartered accountant.
unsurprisingly the financial conduct authority wanted to have a look at everything that had gone on too. even with the takeover offer, wood shares ended the year 63.9 per cent below where they started and are no longer in the ftse 250.
when the british consumer is under pressure, value retailers generally outperform. not b&m, though, whose share price declined 54 per cent. like wood, its finance chief departed after an accounting blunder in october led to a second profit warning in almost as many weeks. its latest results showed a halving of pre-tax profits, and tjeerd jegen, who took over as chief executive in the summer, warned that he expected consumer confidence to “remain subdued for quite a while”.”
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excerpt from
“the winners and losers in 2025, a year of living dangerously”
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