Sidara closes on Wood — and becomes one of the world's biggest private engineering firms

Our friends at Sidara have completed their takeover of Wood Group — a rare take-private of a UK public company by a privately-held UAE firm. The Dubai-headquartered planning, design, engineering, and project management giant closed its acquisition of Aberdeen-based John Wood Group for c.GBP 210 mn, after a nearly two-year pursuit.

By the numbers: The transaction makes Sidara one of the world’s largest privately held engineering and consulting businesses, with a combined workforce north of 55k professionals and revenues north of USD 8.5 bn — split as roughly 40% from North America and 20% from each of Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and Asia-Pacific.

Why it matters: The transaction gives Sidara a serious upgrade in energy and materials capabilities at a moment when Gulf states — Saudi Arabia in particular — are pouring capital into energy infrastructure, industrial buildouts, and decarbonization. Wood’s technical depth there makes it a strategic prize.

It’s not every day that a private company swallows a publicly listed one, rather than the other way around. Sidara Chairman and CEO Talal Shair called it “without a doubt the most ambitious venture in the history of Sidara, driving forward a long-term critical strategy of expanding and elevating our energy offering.”

Wood will retain its brand and operate as a standalone business within Sidara alongside Dar, Perkins & Will, TYLin, and Currie & Brown. Hat tip to our friend Nader Aboushadi (LinkedIn), Sidara’s group chief treasurer, who was instrumental in putting together the transaction and leading it to a close. Regular readers of EnterpriseAM will recognize Nader from his numerous appearances on our stage at various EnterpriseAM forums (read or listen, runtime: 45:58). We also caught up with him a little while back for our My Morning Routine column.