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Dubai’s Sidara shelves bid to take over UK’s John Wood Group

By Shane McGinley
A construction site in Dubai. Sidara had raised its offer for Wood in May Stefano Carnevali/Alamy via Reuters
A construction site in Dubai. Sidara had raised its offer for Wood in May
  • Final offer had valued Wood at $2bn
  • Scottish company’s shares drop 37%
  • ‘Geopolitical risks’ cited

Dubai’s Sidara has abandoned its multi-billion-dollar plan to take over the British consultancy John Wood Group.

The Emirati engineering and consulting group cited “geopolitical risks and market uncertainty” for its decision.

Shares in Wood slumped by 37 percent on the news, hitting their lowest level since December 2022.

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Sidara raised its offer to 230p per share in May after three previous bids had been rejected.

The 230p offer gave Wood a valuation of £1.6 billion ($2 billion), significantly higher than the earlier bids.

Last week the time limit for sealing a deal was pushed to August 9 in what Aberdeen-based Wood described as an “extension to put up or shut up deadline”.

Sidara has now opted not to go ahead.

In its financial results for the first half of 2024, Wood reported a 6 percent year-on-year drop in revenues to $2.8 billion.

This was attributed to a move away from engineering, procurement and construction contracts and “ongoing weakness” in its minerals business.

Wood’s adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation were $210 million, up around 4 percent on H1 2023.

Last year Sidara – whose full name is Dar Al Handasah Consultants Shair and Partners Holdings – bought a majority stake in Canadian building analytics specialist CopperTree Analytics and Turkish engineer Su-Yapi.

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