London, April 30, 2026, 17:11 BST
Weir Group shares fell on Thursday after the British mining technology firm said Chief Executive Jon Stanton would step down in August and reported a 3% fall in organic first-quarter orders, taking the shine off unchanged full-year guidance. Shares dropped as much as 10% and were down 4.4% at 2,642 pence by 1405 GMT, a Reuters report carried by London South East showed.
The timing matters. Weir has been pitched as a play on mining spend tied to copper, gold and other critical minerals, but the update showed demand is still uneven, with mine disruptions in Asia-Pacific and Africa and order timing hitting the Minerals division, its largest business. Organic orders exclude acquisitions and currency swings.
Headline orders rose 4% on a constant-currency basis, which strips out exchange-rate moves, helped by recent acquisitions. The book-to-bill ratio, a measure of orders won against sales billed, rose to 1.14, meaning orders exceeded revenue in the period.
The detail was less clean. Original equipment orders, meaning new machines and systems, rose 1%, while aftermarket orders — parts, repairs and service for installed equipment — increased 4%. ESCO original equipment orders jumped 49%, helped by demand for mining buckets, but Minerals original equipment orders fell 3%.
Weir reiterated its 2026 outlook for growth in constant-currency revenue, operating profit and operating margin. It also kept its free operating cash conversion target at 90% to 100%, and said it expected revenue and profit to be weighted toward the second half.
Stanton said the group saw supportive commodity prices and high activity levels, and expected orders to develop “very positively” through the year. Still, he flagged uncertainty from conflict in the Middle East and wider geopolitical tensions. London South East
The leadership change added another moving part. Stanton, CEO since 2016 and with Weir for 16 years, will step down on Aug. 1. Andrew Neilson, president of the Minerals division, will join the board after Thursday’s annual meeting and become CEO designate before taking the top job.
Weir Chair Barbara Jeremiah said Stanton had left a “more focused” and more profitable business. Stanton called it “the right time for a leadership transition,” while Neilson said Weir had “the right strategy” to serve customers facing global critical-mineral needs. Investegate
AJ Bell’s Russ Mould said the market reaction showed some investor “trepidation” about Weir’s prospects under new leadership, despite resilient trading. Sharecast reported Weir shares were down 6.08% at 2,596 pence at 1205 BST. Sharecast
The broader equipment backdrop was not weak everywhere. Caterpillar, a larger construction and mining equipment peer, reported a 22% rise in first-quarter sales and revenues to $17.4 billion on Thursday, citing resilient end markets and robust order activity.
The risk for Weir is that the expected second-half pick-up does not land as planned. The company is counting on project conversion, acquisition benefits and £30 million of further Performance Excellence savings, while also managing integration work and balance-sheet deleveraging after last year’s deal activity.
Weir, founded in 1871, supplies engineered technology and digital systems to mining and infrastructure customers and employs about 12,000 people in more than 50 countries. Its ordinary shares trade in London under the ticker WEIR.
