Halliburton playing M&A 'small ball' while watching for bigger deals
Halliburton (NYSE:HAL), the Houston, Texas-based energy company, is looking for larger targets as part of its ongoing M&A efforts, management said Monday.
During the Q&A session of the 1Q14 earnings call, CEO David Lesar was asked by Credit Suisse analyst Jim Wicklund about the expected level of acquisition activity for the next couple of years.
"While we would always love to do some big bites, it takes two to tango, right?" Lesar replied. "You've got to have those opportunities in front of you."
The CEO added that in the absence of those larger opportunities, the M&A strategy was to play "small ball" by keeping the pipeline full of prospects that addressed strategic technologies and niches. He also elaborated on the issue of size.
"We would love to have some bigger deals," Lesar said. "We have the balance sheet. We think we have the management team [and] the ability to integrate in a way that can make that very successful, but those have been few and far between."
This news service reported on 6 March, citing the president of Halliburton's Western Hemisphere division, that the company was considering moving beyond water recycling technology used in hydraulic fracturing and into logistics. Beyond water, expansion opportunities in oilfield services would probably be on older oil basins on public land, which could be developed with three-dimensional seismic and other relatively new technology, the executive said for that report in March.
Halliburton has a market capitalization of USD 53bn.