Tidewater acquiring its rival GulfMark
Offshore energy services provider Tidewater is buying Houston rival GulfMark Offshore in an all-stock deal that combines two struggling companies that emerged from bankruptcy last year.
Tidewater, which relocated from New Orleans to Houston earlier this year, said Monday it will acquire GulfMark for about $340 million in stock. The combination creates one of the largest fleets of offshore support vessels for the oil and gas sector in the world. Tidewater is expanding its board from seven directors to 10 to give GulfMark three seats.
The offshore industry is still struggling to rebound from the recent oil bust despite higher crude prices. Most of the new investments are focused onshore, and deep-water companies are continuing to consolidate because there’s simply less activity offshore.
The expanded Tidewater will still be led by Chief Executive
John Rynd, who took the reins early this year. Rynd previously led the now-defunct Houston firm Hercules Offshore, which filed for bankruptcy twice during the bust.
Tidewater has slowly moved more of its operations to Houston over the last 10 to 15 years, but it didn’t officially relocate its headquarters until this year to Houston’s Westchase area.
The deal is expected to close by year-end. The company currently would have a combined Wall Street value of about $1.25 billion. Tidewater aims to complete the merger to coincide with a projected increase in offshore oil and gas activity as the sector continues to improve worldwide from the Gulf of Mexico to Europe’s North Sea.
The deal would combine Tidewater’s 180 vessels worldwide with GulfMark’s fleet of 65 ships. They employ more than 5,600 people globally, although Tidewater cut over 800 jobs last year.
Further illustrating the investments occurring onshore, Houston fracking company U.S. Well Services said this week it will go public and expand through a new business combination with additional private equity investments.
U.S. Well Services is being acquired by a publicly traded blank-check firm called Matlin & Partners Acquisition Corp. that’s headed by Wall Street investor David Matlin, who has a reputation of targeting distressed companies. New York private equity firm Crestview Partners also agreed also to lead $135 million in new investments into the company in exchange for an ownership stake and two board seats.
Six-year-old U.S. Well Services is primarily a hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, company focused on completing oil and gas wells. It stands out for its emphasis on electric powered trucks for its fracking fleets instead of conventional diesel power. The company touts its “Clean Fleet” technology that uses natural gas collected from wells to power its electric turbines.
The deal is expected to close by year’s end, and U.S. Well Services plans to use the proceeds and new investments to expand its business from 11 to 17 fracking fleets, making it one of the industry’s larger players.