The FCA found that Wood made “inappropriate accounting judgements” across several engineering projects, deliberately obscuring their poor performance in order to “maintain previously stated results”. These misstatements caused the company’s profits for 2022 and 2023 to be overstated by nearly $122mn in total. A $140m exceptional charge recorded in Wood’s interim 2024 results should have been attributed to prior-year accounting errors but was not. The regulator also found that Wood had misled both its auditor, KPMG, and its own board. The original penalty of £18.6m was reduced after Wood agreed early to the FCA’s findings.

“Investors rely on accurate information to make decisions,” said Steve Smart, the FCA’s executive director of enforcement and market oversight. “Wood Group failed to provide this and fell well short of the high standards we expect of listed companies.”

The fine caps a turbulent period for the company. Wood, which employs around 35,000 people across more than 60 countries providing engineering and project management services to the oil and gas, mining, and energy sectors, has struggled financially since its £2.2bn acquisition of Amec Foster Wheeler in 2017, a deal that saddled it with significant debt. Shareholders voted in November to accept a 30p-a-share takeover offer from Dubai-based Sidara, valuing the company at approximately £207m – a fraction of its former worth. Wood said this week that it expects its shares to delist when the transaction completes on 10 March.

The FCA opened its investigation in June 2025, following Wood’s restatement of results, and noted that the nine months taken to reach a conclusion demonstrated the regulator’s improved pace of enforcement. Separately, Wood’s former finance chief, Arvind Balan, resigned less than a year after joining the company in April 2024, having admitted to misstating his accounting qualifications. The FCA said it made no criticism of any individual or entity beyond Wood itself.

Wood said the regulator’s findings were consistent with an independent review commissioned by its board in 2024, and that it had “developed a remediation and governance action plan to address the issues identified”.