National Oilwell Varco Shares Fall on Loss

By Tess Stynes 

National Oilwell Varco Inc. shares fell after the maker of drilling equipment and provider of oil-field services swung to a fourth-quarter loss on a big asset write-down tied to low prices for crude.

The Houston company's stock fell 14% to $26.36 in recent trading and was the biggest decliner in the S&P 500 as adjusted per-share earnings, which exclude such one-time items, and revenue missed expectations.

"Tumbling oil prices brought capital austerity and sharply lower oilfield activity, which is intensifying as we enter 2016," Chairman and Chief Executive Clay C. Williams said in prepared remarks Wednesday.

Over all, National Oilwell Varco reported a loss of $1.52 billion, or $4.06 a share, compared with a year-earlier profit of $595 million, or $1.39 a share. The latest period included a $1.63 billion write-down and other one-time items. Excluding such items, per-share earnings fell to 23 cents from $1.69. Revenue dropped by more than half to $2.72 billion.

Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected per-share profit of 44 cents and revenue of $3.04 billion.

Gross margin fell to 19.1% from 27.1%.

Revenue in the company's rig-systems business, its largest by revenue, skidded 60% to $1.02 billion. As of Dec. 31, the backlog for capital-equipment orders was $6.08 billion, a drop of 52% from a year earlier and a decline of 24% sequentially.

Rig aftermarket segment revenue declined by a third, while wellbore technologies segment revenue slid 50% and completion-and-production segment revenue slumped 44%.

Write to Tess Stynes at [e-mail]

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 03, 2016 11:26 ET (16:26 GMT)

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