The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.

By Yawen Chen

LONDON, Nov 8 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Shares in the energy-services group were already miles below where suitors Apollo and Sidara had offered to buy. Now they’ve halved after Wood Group garbled a message about future losses. The likely upshot is shareholders accept a third offer - even lower than the first two.

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CONTEXT NEWS

Aberdeen-based John Wood Group said on Nov. 7 its board had agreed to commission an independent review by Deloitte of its projects division, in response to dialogue with its auditor KPMG. The division designs and procures for large engineering projects in sectors such as energy and mineral processing.

This review follows the exceptional contract write-offs relating to the division and will focus on reported positions on project contracts, accounting, governance and controls, including whether any prior year restatement may be required, the company said.

An update will be provided as appropriate following its conclusion, it added.

In August, Wood announced an operating loss of $899 million for the first half, primarily driven by an impairment of goodwill of $815 million and $140 million of charges related to the exit of the lump sum turnkey and large-scale EPC business.

Wood shares fell 60% to 50 pence on Nov. 7. They were up 18% to 59 pence as of 0958 GMT on Nov. 8.

(Editing by George Hay and Streisand Neto)

((For previous columns by the author, Reuters customers can click on CHEN/
yawen.chen@thomsonreuters.com))