Oil field services firm files Chapter 11
The oil field services company Weatherford International filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in Houston on Monday after years of losses as it struggled under heavy debts.
Weatherford estimated its liabilities at as much as $10 billion, including $7.5 billion in unsecured bond debt. The company said in its bankruptcy filing that it could not determine the value of the debt from its other largest creditors.
Weatherford got its start in 1941 and grew to become the nation’s fourth-largest oil field services provider through a series of acquisitions that stretched over a decade as the company sought to join the ranks of the biggest oil field services companies: Schlumberger, Halliburton and Baker Hughes.
Weatherford, however, had difficulties assimilating all the companies it bought — more than 40. The company, which took on large amounts of debt to finance its buying spree, was already struggling when oil prices began their slide in 2014.
The two-year oil bust that followed only intensified Weatherford’s problems.
Weatherford, a Swiss company with its principal place of opera
tions in Houston, has not made an annual profit since 2011. It was delisted from the New York Stock Exchange in May after its stock price remained below $1 a share for an extended period.
Weatherford said Friday that nearly 80 percent of its creditors are backing a reorganization plan that would allow it to shed $5.8 billion of its $7.6 billion in long-term debt — in exchange for 99 percent of the stock in the reorganized company. The agreement also provides the company with $1.75 billion in fresh credit and loans.
Weatherford had 67,000 employees at the beginning of 2014, but now it has about 26,500.