Halliburton jumps on the M&A bandwagon


Expro, which is a UK oil services company, is a hot property. The company recently agreed to a £1.6 billion buyout from a group of private equity firms, which include Candover Partners, Goldman Sachs Capital Partners (NYSE: GS) and Alpinvest Partners N.V.

Now, Halliburton (NYSE: HAL) is making a play for Expro. The offer is £1.71 billion (which comes to about $3.38 billion).

Of course, high crude prices are driving the deal. What's more, Halliburton needs to expand its international footprint as the US business languishes. Another benefit: Expro has some key technologies that allow for deep drilling capabilities.

But, in light of the quick changes in the oil landscape – as well as the possibility of other suitors coming to the table – we are likely to see more bids for Expro.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements. He also operates MergerBook.com.

Symbol Lookup
IndexesChangePrice
DJIA-89.2312,801.23
NASDAQ-23.352,903.88
S&P 500-9.311,342.64

Last updated: February 13, 2012: 08:33 AM

Hot Stocks

General Electric

18.875-0.255(-1.33)

Alcoa

10.29-0.35(-3.29)

Apple Inc

493.42+0.25(+0.05)

Google Inc 'A'

605.91-5.55(-0.91)

Bank of America

8.07-0.11(-1.34)

Wal-Mart Stores

61.90-0.06(-0.10)

Exxon Mobil Corp

83.80-1.08(-1.27)

Ford

12.44-0.25(-1.97)

Citigroup

32.925-0.735(-2.18)

IBM

192.42-0.71(-0.37)

Yahoo

16.14+0.14(+0.88)

Starbucks

48.82-0.38(-0.77)

Microsoft

30.495-0.275(-0.89)

Home Depot

45.33+0.06(+0.13)

DailyFinance Headlines

Benzinga Headlines

TheFlyOnTheWall.com Headlines

BioHealth Investor Headlines

WalletPop Headlines

DailyFinance BlackBerry App

My Portfolios

Track your stocks here!

Find out why more people track their portfolios on AOL Money & Finance then anywhere else.

BloggingStocks Partners

More from AOL Money & Finance

BioHealth Investor Headlines

Page Loaded in 1329140014147 ms.