Wood Group delivered a mixed trading update just a day after batting away yet another suitor for the engineer and oil and mining fabrication projects specialist.
Sales in the three months to June fell by 6% to US$1.36 billion, though underlying profits rose by 4% as better margins across the group offset the lower sales income.
Orders also picked up, with the book now standing at US$6.2 billion, up 9% compared to March 2023.
Ken Gilmartin, chief executive, added: "We are now in the second year of our growth strategy and are making good progress, with EBITDA growth, margin expansion and an order book 9% higher than a year ago.
We continue to win exciting and complex work across energy and materials, with sustainable solutions representing 40% of our pipeline.
“We are today reiterating our EBITDA guidance for 2024 and our outlook for 2025".
In March, Wood launched a cost-cutting programme to save This programme is expected to generate total annualised savings of around $60 million from 2025, with around $10 million of savings in 2024.
As this rolls out, Wood expects underlying profit [EBITDA] in 2025 to exceed our medium-term target.
“With this improving profitability and continued improvements in cash conversion, we expect to deliver significant free cash flow in 2025," the statement added.
Yesterday, the FTSE 250 engineering and consulting group turned down a takeover offer from its Dubai-based rival Sidara.
Sidara's offer valued the group at over £1.4 billion, or 205p per share, representing a 25% premium to Wood's opening price on Wednesday.
In April 2023, Wood rejected an offer worth 240p per share from private equity firm Apollo.
In total, Apollo made four approaches to buy the engineer before finally giving up.