Amec Foster Wheeler share price rises after it nabs Halliburton exec as new boss
Amec Foster Wheeler said today that its interim boss will be replaced by an exec from US rival Halliburton.
Jonathan Lewis will step into his new role on 1 June, when interim chief executive, Ian McHoul, will move into his previous position as chief financial officer.
Mr Lewis is currently a senior vice president at Halliburton, where he's held a number of senior roles over the last two decades. Before this he'd spent nearly 10 years working in academia.
Read more: Amec shares jump on plan to weather oil rout
He's in line for a £775,000 pay packet, as well as being eligible for an annual bonus and participation in the long term incentive plan.
Amec shares increased by as much as 3.4 per cent to 502p per share this morning.
Lewis will have to tackle the group's bulging debt, which is currently £1.16bn, following the sharp fall in oil prices from over $110 per barrel in the middle of 2014.
Amec said today that net debt was expected to stand at £1bn at the end of the year, broadly in line with 2015. The firm said it remains on track to halve its debt pile, largely through disposals, before June 2017.
Read more: Amec Foster Wheeler wins £125m BP contract
It reported revenue fell slightly by 1.5 per cent to £1.3bn in the first quarter of 2016, but by 3.1 per cent on a like-for-like basis, down from £1.3bn during the same period a year earlier.
The order book stood at £6.4bn at the end of March, having fallen more than three per cent £6.6bn in the last three months of 2015.
But Amec expects "only slight like-for-like revenue decline" for the whole of 2016.