Weatherford Investors Seek `More Boring’ From Oilfield Servicer

Weatherford International Plc shareholders are asking the company for one thing this quarter: Please, just be a little more boring.

Over the last decade, the oilfield-services provider has missed analyst estimates 20 times, settled a corruption probe and spent more than $150 million in professional fees to fix errors in its accounting. And last month, it abandoned plans to raise $1 billion for an acquisition just hours after announcing them.

Now the company is seeking to build investor trust amid the worst oil-market slump in decades. Chief Executive Officer Bernard Duroc-Danner needs to manage day-to-day activities in a way that will, for the first time in five years, generate more cash than the company spends, said David Anderson, an analyst at Barclays Plc in New York. It’s a target Weatherford set for itself last year but failed to reach.

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