AmericasOffshore

Baker Hughes plans to cut $500m in costs after cancellation of Halliburton merger

Even though Sunday’s cancelling of its planned merger saw it net $3.5bn in termination fees from Halliburton, Baker Hughes announced on Wednesday it will be cutting its annual overhead costs by $500m this year following the failure of the deal.

The proposed merging of two of the world’s biggest oilfield services firms ran afoul of US and European anti-trust regulations.

Baker Hughes said it would make the savings by changing its distribution and service model in certain markets, effectively investing less in those areas.

The cancelled $28bn deal had been in the works for some time, having first emerged in late 2014, and would have created the world’s biggest oilfield services firm, bigger than Schlumberger.

The US Department of Justice had announced last month it would challenge the merger of the two Houston-based companies.

Donal Scully

With 28 years experience writing and editing for newspapers in the UK and Hong Kong, Donal is now based in California from where he covers the Americas for Splash as well as ensuring the site is loaded through the Western Hemisphere timezone.
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