Siemens Acquires Expro’s Subsea Grid Unit for $620 Million

20 March 2012

Siemens AG (SIE), Europe’s largest engineering company, agreed to buy a subsea power-grid equipment supplier from Expro Holdings for 470 million euros ($621 million) to expand its offering to the oil and gas industry.

The unit, which posted sales of 90 million euros last year, makes cable connectors, sensors and measuring devices for use on sea beds at depths down to 3,000 meters (9842 feet), Munich- based Siemens said today in an e-mailed statement.

"Deep-sea applications are one of the fastest-growing market segments within the oil and gas industry,” the company said in the statement. "The market volume is expected to reach 2 billion euros by 2020.”

The acquisition is Chief Executive Officer Peter Loescher’s second largest after the purchase of Dade Behring for $7 billion in 2007. Siemens has pursued smaller acquisitions of less than 1 billion euros, opting to preserve its cash holdings that stood at 12.5 billion euros at the end of its most recent financial year. By contrast, power-grid builder ABB has spent about $7.6 billion in the past three years on acquisitions, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Siemens traded 1.3 percent lower at 78.46 euros as of 10:48 a.m. in Frankfurt.

Expro is owned by Arle Capital Partners. The Expro unit’s equipment ensures a reliable power supply that can withstand the pressures of deepsea oil and gas drilling, Siemens said.