Director dealings: Petrofac's finance chief buys-in

According to the company, Alastair Cochrain bought 22,853 shares at an individual price of 507.6p each, for a total transaction amount of £115,997, lifting his disclosable interest in the outfit to 30,998 shares.

Earlier during the same month, Petrofac posted a 3.7% increase in its full-year operatings profits to reach $730m, adding that company boss Ayman Asfari was to resume his full duties with "immediate effect".

Asfari had been placed under restrictions by Petrofac in May of 2017, after the UK's Serious Fraud Office (SFO) started a probe into the company in connection with an inquiry into Monaco-based Unaoil over suspected bribery, corruption and money laundering.

The company's results were followed by multiple contract wins in quick succession over the remainder of the month.

Several weeks before, on 15 January, analysts at Numis had highlighted Petrofac and Wood Group as their top UK picks in the OFS/E&C space.

At the same time that they raised their target price on Petrofac's shares, from 600p to 700p, they told clients: " We favour Petrofac for its exposure to Middle East E&C activity upside and a relatively low valuation, which more than offsets its' potential SFO newsflow risks, in our view."