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The financial director of the besieged engineer John Wood Group resigned with immediate effect after admitting having mowed his professional qualifications.
The company listed in the United Kingdom, whose share price collapsed last week, said its board of directors had accepted Arvind Balan’s resignation in an announcement on the Stock Exchange, a few hours after having been questioned by the Financial Times about his qualifications.
The company OIILFIELD SERVICES AND ENGINEERING – One of the few stories of multinational success that the United Kingdom was able to get out of the development of its resources from the North Sea – said Balan had given an “incorrect description of its professional qualifications in various statements in the public domain ”.
The annual report and the Wood website have described Balan as an authorized accountant. However, Balan does not appear in the registers of approved accountants in the United Kingdom or Australia, the organizations responsible for maintaining the FT registers said.
The FT subsequently asked Wood Group where Balan was recorded as a authorized accountant. The company refused to comment.
According to his LinkedIn profile, Balan is an accountant certified at CPA Australia. The CPA qualification is a respected route and almost equivalent to approved accounting, but is considered less prestigious by certain accountants.
The CPA includes a study towards a wider range of services than the more technical approved accounting route.
Balan, who had been in CFO employment for less than a year, said: “Unfortunately, I made honest surveillance with regard to the description of my professional qualification as an approved accountant instead of a certified practice [sic] an accountant.
“I continue to believe in the long -term potential of the company and its inhabitants. My decision is based on the minimization of distraction at this very pivotal moment with our investors and our lenders. »»
The Institute of Accountants approved in England and Wales jointly has the brand at the end “Authorized accountant” and made false declarations on which has won the qualification “very seriously”, according to advice on its website. It was a question of preventing public members from being “misled by thinking that the individual is a qualified approved accountant,” said the directives.
The code of ethics that links the members of the Australia CPA requires “integrity” and declares that the members “will not be knowingly associated with reports. . . (containing) a materially false or misleading declaration. . . or information provided recklessly ”.
Laura Empson, a professor in the management of professional Bayes School service companies, said that “any false declaration of your professional, accidental or deliberate qualifications, raises questions about your reliability and your integrity as a professional”.
The release of Balan arrives at a critical time for the company FTSE 250, whose share price dropped by 64% during last week after having announced Friday that its cash flow available for 2025 would be negative until 200 million dollars, having previously declared it would be positive.
He also reported “material” weaknesses in his governance discovered by an independent review which was launched in November following conversations with his listener.
The company based in Aberdeen had a market capitalization of more than 5 billion pounds Sterling as recently as 2018, but it fell at around 170 million pounds sterling this week.
It was evaluated at 1.6 billion pounds sterling last year in an offer of buyout of Aidara before the company based in Dubai moved away in August, quoting “the geopolitical risks and the uncertainty of the financial market ».
A previous approach to Apollo Global in May 2023 estimated the wood at around 2.2 billion pounds sterling, including the debt, although the pretender also disappeared.
On Friday, in a press release, the company said that its net debt amounted to around $ 1.1 billion and that the company was considering “all potential refinancing options” as debt facilities approached maturity in October 2026.
Wood said it would make an announcement on the Balan successor and the interim coverage “in due course”.
