A couple of weeks ago, two industry giants – Chart Industries and Flowserve – announced that they intended to merge.
But at the 11th hour, Baker Hughes swooped in and acquired Chart. The almost $14 billion deal has liquefied natural gas (LNG) dominance written all over it.
Chart’s portfolio spans the stationary and rotating equipment used in every phase of the liquid gas supply chain, including engineering, service, and repair and from installation to preventive maintenance, and digital monitoring.
That includes LNG, hydrogen, biogas and CO2 capture. in recent years Chart has acquired several oil and gas companies including LA Turbine and Howden Group. Only recently partnered with Bloom Energy on carbon capture which fits into Baker Hughes’ zone of operation.
The deal provides Baker Hughes with a large swath of new customers. Cross-selling opportunities abound across both sides of the merger. Chart has also been active in the data center market, which is an area Baker Hughes is keen to expand into.
Chart generated $4.2 billion in revenue in 2024. It operates 65 manufacturing locations with over 50 service centers globally.
“We know Chart well, having worked alongside them on many critical energy infrastructure projects,” says Baker Hughes Chairman and CEO Lorenzo Simonelli.
Their products and services are highly complementary to our offerings and aligned with our intent to deliver distinctive and efficient end-to-end life cycle solutions for customers across their most critical applications.”
Together, Chart and Baker Hughes bring a differentiated set of capabilities to solve complex energy challenges and support sustainability goals. This fits into Baker Hughes’ strategy to be positioned as a leader in lower-carbon technologies.
Additionally, it exposes the company to high-growth markets, including data centers, space, and new energy. It also broadens exposure to more durable industrial sectors including industrial gas, metals and mining, and food and beverage.
Baker Hughes has identified $325 million of annualized cost synergy opportunities by the end of year three.
This deal is up there with some of the biggest acquisitions in the industry. GE bought Alstom for around $10 billion ten years ago. Siemens bought Dresser Rand for less than $8 billion and the Rolls-Royce aeroderivative gas turbine business for $800 million.
That this deal is worth almost $14 billion offers an idea of its scale and importance. Repercussions will be felt across the entire oil and gas, LNG, and gas turbine industry.
“The combination positions Baker Hughes to be a technology leader that can provide engineering and technology expertise to meet the growing demand for lower-carbon, efficient, energy and industrial solutions across attractive growth markets such as LNG, data centers and New Energy,” says Simonelli.
