NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--Au terme de plusieurs semaines de discussions, le géant américain des services pétroliers Halliburton (HAL) a annoncé lundi une offre d'achat amicale en actions et en numéraire sur son compatriote Baker Hugues (BHI). Cette opération confère à Baker Hugues une valeur de marché de 34,6 milliards de dollars et une valeur d'entreprise de 38 milliards de dollars, sur la base du cours de clôture du titre Halliburton au 12 novembre.
A périmètre constant, le nouvel ensemble aurait réalisé un chiffre d'affaires de 51,8 milliards de dollars en 2013, compté 136.000 employés et aurait été présent dans 80 pays à travers le monde.
A la clôture de l'offre, les actionnaires de Baker Hugues détiendront environ 36% du nouvel ensemble. Les deux groupes ont précisé dans leur communiqué que ce projet de rapprochement avait été approuvé à l'unanimité par leur conseil d'administration respectif.
Négociations tendues
L'accord intervient après des négociations tendues entre les deux groupes. La semaine dernière, le Wall Street Journal avait rapporté les discussions entre les deux sociétés sur ce rapprochement, qui doit les aider à surmonter la chute des prix du pétrole. Halliburton a présenté son offre initiale à Baker Hughes le 13 octobre.
Les négociations entre les deux groupes avaient été rompues vendredi soir, lorsque Halliburton a indiqué à Baker Hughes qu'il chercherait à remplacer l'intégralité de son conseil d'administration. Toutefois, les tensions semblent avoir disparu avec l'accord conclu. "Nous envisageons un nouvel ensemble capable de saisir des opportunités qu'aucune des deux entreprises n'aurait pu réaliser aussi bien - ou aussi vite - en restant seule", a commenté Martin Craighead, le PDG de Baker Hugues.
Halliburton propose 19 dollars en numéraire et 1,12 action Halliburton pour chaque action Baker Hugues, selon les termes d'un accord "définitif" scellé entre les deux groupes.
Sur la base du cours de clôture d'Halliburton vendredi, l'offre valorise Baker Hugues à 78,62 dollars par action, soit une prime de 31% par rapport à son dernier cours de vendredi.
L'action Halliburton a ouvert en net recul lundi à Wall Street après le dépôt de cette offre, s'inscrivant en baisse de 7,21%, à 51,10 dollars, dans les premiers échanges. Baker Hugues gagnait pour sa part 8,7% à 65,19 dollars.
Une opération qui sera scrutée par les autorités de la concurrence
Halliburton compte financer la composante en numéraire de l'opération grâce à ses ressources et en ayant recours à de la dette. Si les autorités de la concurrence le souhaitent, Halliburton s'est déclaré prêt à céder des activités générant 7,5 milliards de dollars de revenus.
Le groupe est également prêt à débourser pour 3,5 milliards de dollars de frais de rupture si l'opération échouait du fait d'obstacles réglementaires. Parvenir à un accord amical revêt un caractère important pour une opération qui sera vraisemblablement étudiée de près par les autorités de la concurrence. Les plus sceptiques des régulateurs sont généralement plus difficiles à convaincre en l'absence d'un partenaire de fusion également déterminé à persuader le gouvernement fédéral de donner son feu vert au rapprochement envisagé.
Un rapprochement annoncé dans un contexte délicat
Ce rapprochement intervient dans un contexte d'essoufflement de la demande de services pétroliers alors que la baisse des prix de l'or noir, passés de 100 à 75 dollars le baril en quelques mois, a poussé les producteurs à réduire leurs coûts et leurs investissements.
Cette baisse des dépenses a notamment touché les méga-projets des géants du secteur de la production, comme les forages en eaux profondes, ainsi que les projets d'exploitation dans le gaz de schiste qui utilisent traditionnellement les services d'Halliburton ou Baker Hugues pour la fracturation hydraulique.
Beaucoup d'entreprises sont également désormais en mesure d'extraire davantage de gaz et de pétrole avec un nombre plus restreint de forages.
Selon Bill Herbert, gérant chez Simmons & Co, une banque d'investissement spécialisée dans l'énergie, "avec la baisse des dépenses des entreprises au plan mondial et des groupes américains qui se préparent à un atterrissage sévère, la consolidation dans le secteur des services pétroliers est devenu impérative". Halliburton et Baker Hughes sont respectivement les deuxième et troisième groupes de services pétroliers au monde en termes de chiffre d'affaires, après Schlumberger (SLB). "Les trois groupes sont à couteaux tirés depuis plusieurs années", remarquent les analystes de Tudor, Pickering Holt & Co. Un rapprochement constituerait l'une des plus grosses opérations de fusion-acquisition dans le secteur de l'énergie depuis plusieurs années, alors que le secteur est confronté au fléchissement des prix du pétrole.
La transaction devrait être bouclée au second semestre 2015. Le futur groupe disposera d'un conseil d'administration composé de 15 membres, dont trois issus de celui de Baker Hugues. Le PDG de Halliburton, Dave Lesar, présidera et dirigera le nouvel ensemble.
-Angela Chen, Dow Jones Newswires
(Version française Eric Chalmet et Jérôme Batteau)
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
November 17, 2014 09:58 ET (14:58 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2014 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Halliburton The New King?
Summary
- HAL agreed to buy BHI for $34.6 billion;
- If approved, a potential merger would significantly increase HAL’s negotiating power;
- The deal is also positive for the broader oil services sector.
Halliburton (NYSE:HAL) has agreed to buy Baker Hughes (NYSE:BHI) for about $34.6 billion in a friendly cash and stock deal. While the deal is still subject to regulatory approval, a potential merger would create the largest oilfield services company on sales that would rival Schlumberger (NYSE:SLB) and in certain markets these two oilfield majors (HAL/BHI and SLB) would have a de-facto duopoly. Halliburton has said that if required it is willing to divest assets worth $7.5 billion in revenue, although the company believes the regulators would ask for significantly less.
Both Halliburton and Baker Hughes have exposure to a number of similar businesses where their market share often ranks at number two or number three to Schlumberger's number one. These business segments include Drillbits, Drilling/Completion Fluids and Wireline. There are also few exceptions, such as Artificial Lift and Specialty Chemicals, where Baker Hughes is the leader while Halliburton is a minor player.
What It Means for Halliburton and Rest of the Oil Services Industry?
With a potential merger HAL will be able to include BHI's average North American pumping business onto its premium platform. This will improve HAL's negotiating position on large international contracts due to less competition. Integrating Baker's artificial lift products business within Halliburton's mature asset portfolio will also create value for HAL. Baker Hughes' under-levered balance sheet and cheap financing costs also aid the potential deal economics.
Due to increased competitive behavior by all of the big three oil services players: Schlumberger, Halliburton, and Baker Hughes, international margins in the most recent cycle remained below prior cycle peak of 2006-08. However, higher prices on major international tenders due to less competition (post HAL-BHI merger) combined with the recent industry wide focus on cost efficiency by oil services majors could help expand margins to rival prior highs in the next up-cycle. At the same time reduced competitiveness could also mitigate some of the likely near-term pressures as activity contracts during a period of lower oil prices. A potential HAL-BHI merger would allow the oil services industry to emerge stronger following the current oil-price driven slump.
An Effective Duopoly
In certain markets, such as deepwater, where historically Schlumberger, Halliburton, and Baker Hughes have been the three key players, a potential merger between Halliburton and Baker Hughes would effectively create a de-factor duopoly. However, a combined HAL and BHI would surpass SLB in key technology driven products lines and would also have a dominant share in more commoditized pressure pumping services. Having said that, a deal would still be positive for Schlumberger as the company could benefit from reduced competition for integrated projects and technical services offshore. Weatherford (NYSE:WFT) could also benefit from less competition in integrated projects, but a potential HAL-BHI merger takes out the possibility of HAL pursuing WFT.
Antitrust Scrutiny Apparently The Biggest Challenge
Both HAL and BHI have exposure to a number of similar businesses globally and one of the biggest challenges to combing the world's second and the third largest oilfield services companies would be scrutiny from antitrust regulators. As you can see from the chart below, post-merger there can be significant levels of concentration in several markets. While some markets, such as LWD (Logging While Drilling) and completion equipment, are particularly noticeable, nearly all markets would be considered moderately or high concentrated post-merger. Moreover, a combined HAL and BHI would have particularly high market share in North America so it's expected that the proposed merger would face the highest scrutiny in North America.
Halliburton Willing To Sell Assets
At first the proposed merger looks challenging and Halliburton might have to sell some assets (which the company is willing to) in order to secure approval for the deal. As Simmons' analyst, Bill Herbert, pointed out fracking overlap could invite some serious scrutiny. Herbert said, "The fracking overlap is going to invite some scrutiny. It's safe to say the Justice Department scrutiny of this deal is going to be pretty deep." According to oilfield consultant Spears & Associates, HAL and BHI could together control 39% of the market share post-merger vs. 20% of the closet rival SLB. But it's worth mentioning here that hydraulic fracturing has low barriers to entry and there is still one top competitor [SLB], so it's not like one player will have a long-run pricing power.
Moreover, in other big markets such as Drilling & Completions Fluids the combined market share of HAL and BHI (34%) would still be less than SLB (36%). Similarly in Directional Drilling business, combined market share of HAL and BHI (34%) would be close to SLB (31%). There are also businesses, such as Artificial Lift and Specialty Chemicals, where BHI is a major player while HAL's market share is relatively small. Both Artificial Lift and Specialty Chemicals businesses are used in maintaining production in mature basins and HAL has previously stated that it wants to increase its exposure to these businesses.
While it is not an attempt to predict the likelihood of the antitrust outcome, Morgan Stanley in its report (published November 14, 2014) said that "the sophisticated customer base and business-to-business nature of the oilfield services industry - along with potentially other factors - has typically meant mergers face fewer antitrust issues than other industries." The firm further notes that, "SLB was not required to divest any of Smith's assets, contrary to expectations that divestiture would be required due to a significant overlap in directional drilling."
Source: Spears & Associates and Goldman Sachs
Conclusion
A potential merger with Baker Hughes would make Halliburton the largest oilfield services company and HAL would be able to unseat SLB from the top in several key lines of business. The deal could also be positive for the broader oil services sector, which faces near-term challenges driven by oil price weakness but could re-emerge stronger. The sector has faced increasing competition among the leading players, which resulted in lower international margins. But a potential HAL-BHI merger could strengthen prices and drive up margins. A potential merger is a win-win for both HAL and BHI shareholders, as the transaction values Baker Hughes at $78.62 per share as of November 12, 2014 (BHI closed at $51 on November 12, 2014).
I have a bullish view on Halliburton. I believe the company's dominant position in North America, given superior logistics and exposure to the right customers makes it more defensive relative to other North American peers. In weak oil prices world I believe Halliburton, compared to its peers, is better positioned to weather the storm.
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