What? Shares in global engineering group Worleyparsons Limited (ASX: WOR) entered a trading halt on Thursday morning follow a board meeting that identified "non-recurring charges impacting the financial year 2015".
What does it mean? Worley shareholders are bracing for another profit downgrade and significant share price fall on Monday when the shares resume trading. Yesterday's trading halt follows the disappointing profit result in February where net profit for the first half fell 7 per cent to $104.3 million from last year's $112.1 million.
Analysts speculated on Thursday that the follow-up announcement could be regarding asset or receivable write-downs or another costly restructure of the business. Worley's management team was unable to give full-year guidance at the February presentation but presumably the announcement will be significant to full-year profit, noting that analysts were divided on what group profit would be following 18 months of successive downgrades.
What now? Before the announcement tomorrow or over the weekend, one can only speculate that there's little upside in whatever the company is facing. The group's dispute with Exxon Mobil has been quite public and investors reported a lack of faith in management following the half-year result.
Worley's profits and share price is closely linked to the global oil price, which has consolidated recently but could easily crash again!
