It says it has been hit by expected non-recurring redundancy and onerous lease charges and an increase in general project provisions to the 2015 financial year earnings following a review of its business in the wake of lower commodity prices.
It expects to record a $A125 million impairment, primarily on its North American interests.
WorleyParsons is taking further action to adjust its business to market conditions, and expects to reduce its employee numbers by more than 2000. It will also seek to slash its associated onerous lease costs.
The company’s management is seeking to balance the long-term sustainability of the business with the need to adjust operations by reducing costs.
“The benefits of this will flow through to the 2016 financial year and are estimated to deliver future annualised savings of between $75 million and $100 million,” the company said in a statement.
“Taking into account the impact of these charges and provisions the company now expects statutory earnings for the second half to be 50% of the first half of the 2015 financial year.”
The firm, which has offices around the world, is heavily invested in North America’s infrastructure, hydrocarbons, minerals, metals and chemicals sector, including the Canadian oil sands sector.
The company announced an aggregate statutory net profit after tax of $US104.3 million ($A132.3 million) for the six months ended December 31, reflecting a 7% decrease from the previous corresponding period.
The 2014 financial year was a difficult year for WorleyParsons across many of its key markets, leading to a restructure of its business and the sacking of 1700 workers.
At the end of the December, Worley employed 35,100 people operating out of 157 offices across 46 countries, compared with 35,600 people at June 30, and flagged more cuts as it “tuned” its business model.
For the 2014 calendar year the company reported an underlying net profit after tax of $A263.4 million, excluding $35.4 million pre-tax restructuring costs and the net fair value gain on acquisition of associates of $11.4 million, down 18.2% on its 2013 underlying result, primarily due to its underperforming assets in Australia and Canada.
Last week Deutsche Bank said the engineering company could become a takeover target.
In September Macquarie Wealth Management put an outperform rating on Worley based on its stronger margin North American growth plans, and recently the analyst said WorleyParsons was more likely to be a buyer than seller of assets.
It reduced its outlook to a neutral rating due to lower oil price forecasts and a lack of major project sanctions facing the whole resources sector.
