蜜芽传媒

Wood Group, based in Aberdeen, has announced it has struck a deal to sell its Well Services division to GE Oil and Gas, part of the vast GE conglomerate.

It has got a top dollar price of $2.8bn (拢1.7bn), of which $1.7bn (拢1bn) is to be distributed among shareholders. Wood's stock price duly bounced.

As a world-leader in oilfield services, Wood Group has done a lot more acquiring than selling in the 40-plus years since it moved out of the fisheries business, most recently including the purchase of PSN, another Aberdeen company, with 8,000 worldwide employees, for which it is paying 拢600m.

But the sale of the Well Services division is a significant development in focussing Wood Group's activities on a narrower range of services, as well as showing GE is investing rapidly. It succeeded in December in buying Tyneside-based Wellstream, for 拢800m, attracted by its big presence in Brazil.

Wood Group chairman, Sir Ian Wood, talked to 蜜芽传媒 Scotland's business and economy editor, Douglas Fraser.