Wind back the clock just over a year and Weir Group was on the ropes. The Glasgow engineer had been hollowed out by the oil price crash and was haemorrhaging staff, profits and orders. Its £825m debt mountain led some to speculate that Weir might need a rights issue to keep the banks at bay. Its long-standing boss, Keith Cochrane, left in September and was replaced by another bullet-headed executive, its former finance chief Jon Stanton.
What a difference a year can make. As the chart shows, the shares have more than doubled since they troughed early last year. The recovery in the oil price, the Opec cartel’s deal to limit production and the uptick in the global economy sent orders for its pumps soaring.