{"id":113527,"date":"2026-03-11T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-11T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/enterpriseam.com\/uae\/?p=113527"},"modified":"2026-03-11T04:56:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-11T04:56:10","slug":"sidara-closes-on-wood-and-becomes-one-of-the-worlds-biggest-private-engineering-firms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/enterpriseam.com\/uae\/2026\/03\/11\/sidara-closes-on-wood-and-becomes-one-of-the-worlds-biggest-private-engineering-firms\/","title":{"rendered":"Sidara closes on Wood \u2014 and becomes one of the world's biggest private engineering firms"},"content":{"rendered":"

Our friends at Sidara have completed their takeover of Wood Group \u2014 a rare take-private <\/strong>of a UK public company by a privately-held UAE firm.<\/strong> 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. <\/p>\n

By the numbers: <\/strong>The transaction makes Sidara one of the world\u2019s largest privately held engineering and consulting businesses, with a combined workforce north of 55k professionals and revenues north of USD 8.5 bn \u2014 split as roughly 40% from North America and 20% from each of Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and Asia-Pacific.<\/p>\n

Why it matters:<\/strong> The transaction gives Sidara a serious upgrade in energy and materials capabilities at a moment when Gulf states \u2014 Saudi Arabia in particular \u2014 are pouring capital into energy infrastructure, industrial buildouts, and decarbonization. Wood\u2019s technical depth there makes it a strategic prize. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s not every day that a private company swallows a publicly listed one<\/strong>, rather than the other way around. Sidara Chairman and CEO Talal Shair called it \u201cwithout 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wood will retain its brand and operate as a standalone business within Sidara<\/strong> alongside Dar, Perkins & Will, TYLin, and Currie & Brown. Hat tip to our friend Nader Aboushadi<\/strong> (LinkedIn<\/a>), Sidara\u2019s 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<\/a> or listen, runtime: 45:58<\/a>). We also caught up with him a little while back for our My Morning Routine column. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The transaction, nearly two years in the making, will give Sidara a strategic edge as it goes after new business in Saudi and around the world<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":113593,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":false,"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","ep_exclude_from_search":false,"_primary_brand":0,"newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_show_updated_date":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2392],"tags":[7,1213,60,2490,2489],"brand":[],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"class_list":["post-113527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ma-watch-2","tag-enterpriseam-uae","tag-john-wood-group","tag-ma-watch","tag-nader-aboushadi","tag-sidara-collective","wpautop","entry"],"acf":{"mongo_id":"45e1d9cf-da40-47ac-8201-e5da00a51e5b","order":"7","is_powered_by":false,"story_type":"1","photo_url":"","photo_position":"above","homepage_title":"","full_issue_title":"Sidara completes Wood Group takeover after two-year pursuit","related_issue":[113515],"teaser":"The transaction, nearly two years in the making, will give Sidara a strategic edge as it goes after new business in Saudi and around the world","photo_link":"","related_sponsor":"","voice_url":"","en_translation_ref_id":"","section_story_id":""},"yoast_head":"\nSidara closes on Wood \u2014 and becomes one of the world's biggest private engineering firms - UAE<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/enterpriseam.com\/uae\/2026\/03\/11\/sidara-closes-on-wood-and-becomes-one-of-the-worlds-biggest-private-engineering-firms\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Sidara closes on Wood \u2014 and becomes one of the world's biggest private engineering firms\" \/>\n<meta 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