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The financial director of the besieged engineer John Wood stepped down with an immediate impact after he admitted to hiding his professional qualifications.
The company listed in the United Kingdom, whose share price collapsed last week, said that its council had accepted the resignation of Arvind Paln in an advertisement to the stock exchange, hours after it was interrogated by financial times about its qualifications.
The Services and Engineering Company for Oil field services – one of the few multinational success stories that the United Kingdom was able to develop its northern sea resources – said that “an incorrect description of its professional qualifications in various data in the public field in the public field.”
Wood’s annual report described and its website as a legal accountant. However, Balan does not appear in the records of legal accountants in the United Kingdom or Australia, the bodies responsible for preserving the records that were told FT.
FT later asked Wood Group where Balan was registered as a legal accountant. The company refused to comment.
According to his personal file, LinkedIn, Balan is an accredited practitioner of CPA Australia. CPA qualifications are an almost respectable and equivalent path for rented accounting, but it is seen as less famous by some accountants.
CPA includes a study towards a wide range of services from the most technical legal accounting path.
“Unfortunately, I have been supervised by a sincere supervision regarding my professional qualifications as a legal accountant instead of accredited practice. [sic] accountant.
I still believe in the long -term capabilities of the company and its people. My decision depends on reducing distraction at this very pivotal time with our investors and lending. ”
The Institute of Legal Accountants in England and Wales has a brand jointly for the term “legal accountant” and takes a distortion about those who obtained the qualification “seriously”, according to directives on its website. This was to prevent the members of the public, “they misled to believe that the individual is a qualified legal accountant,” says guidance.
The Ethics Law that connects CPA Australia “Integrity” requires that the members “are not intentionally linked to reports. (It contains) a false or physical misleading statement … or the information provided recklessly.”
“Any distortion of your professional qualifications, whether accidental or deliberate, raises questions about your reliability and integrity as a professional,” said Laura Impson, professor of professional services companies at Bayes College of Business.
Balan’s exit comes at a critical moment for FTSE 250, whose share price decreased by 64 percent last week after it stated on Friday that the free cash flow of 2025 would be negative for $ 200 million, after it was previously mentioned would be positive.
She also reported the “physical” weaknesses in her ruling, which was revealed by an independent review that was launched in November after talks with her auditor.
The company, which is based in Aberdeen, has reached its headquarters for more than 5 billion pounds since 2018, but this has decreased to about 170 million pounds by this week.
The value of up to 1.6 billion pounds in the past year in an attempt to acquire Sidara before the Dubai -based company launched its headquarters in August, noting “geopolitical risks and uncertainty in the financial market.”
A previous approach from Apollo Global in May 2023 estimated wood in about 2.2 billion pounds, including debt, although the suitor moved away at the end.
In a statement on Friday, the company said that its net debt was about $ 1.1 billion, and the company was looking into “all possible re -financing options” as debt facilities approached the entitlement in October 2026.
Wood said he would issue an advertisement for Khalifa Baln and the temporary cover “in time.”