Halliburton Pursues Sale Of Drill Bits, Directional Drilling, LWD/MWD Businesses

(RTTNews) - Oilfield services provider Halliburton Co (HAL) on Tuesday said it would separately sell its Fixed Cutter and Roller Cone Drill Bits, Directional Drilling and Logging-While-Drilling/Measurement-While-Drilling businesses in connection with its pending acquisition of Baker Hughes Inc (BHI).

Halliburton said the final sale of these businesses will not be completed until it reached acceptable terms and conditions negotiated by it, the approval of its board and final approvals of the Baker Hughes deal by competition authorities.

"Although we would prefer to retain these assets, we will be required to divest some of our overlapping businesses to obtain competition authorities' approvals as anticipated when we announced the Halliburton-Baker Hughes transaction," said CEO Dave Lesar in a statement.

Halliburton said it would operate as one company, including the businesses held for sale, until the sale of the identified businesses is complete.

Halliburton expects to complete the sale of the businesses in the same timeframe as the closing of the pending Baker Hughes acquisition late in the second half of 2015.

In mid-November 2014, Halliburton agreed to buy smaller rival Baker Hughes in a cash and stock deal valued at $78.62 per Baker Hughes share, or a total of $34.6 billion.