Oil and Gas

Frank’s buys Blackhawk Group for $321 million

The merger will be funded $150 million in cash and 12.8 million shares of Frank’s common stock. Approximately $80 million of Blackhawk debt will be repaid at closing with proceeds from the transaction.

Frank’s International announced on Oct. 7 that it will buy Houston-based Blackhawk Group, which includes well construction services provider Blackhawk Specialty Tools, for $321 million.

The merger will be funded by $150 million in cash and 12.8 million shares of Frank’s common stock. Approximately $80 million of Blackhawk debt will be repaid at closing with proceeds from the transaction.

Frank’s International, which is also based out of Houston, is buying Blackhawk from Bain Capital Private Equity, which purchased Blackhawk in 2013. The deal is expected to close by the end of the year.

Frank's was founded in Lafayette almost eight decades ago and has grown to become one of the largest tubular services companies in the world. The company went public in 2013 and is no longer run by the Mosing family that started it.

Retired Chevron North America Exploration and Production Co. President Gary Luquette took the reins at Frank's International in January 2015, replacing Keith Mosing, a grandson of the company’s founder. A year later, Mosing stepped down as executive chairman of the company’s board of directors but remains on the board.

The deal is another clear sign of the ongoing consolidation of the oil and gas industry’s service and supply sector, which has taken a brutal beating since oil prices dropped from more than $100 a barrel in 2014 to about $50 today (see related story on Frank’s layoffs).

Frank’s expects Blackhawk to augment its tubular running services business by giving it access to specialty cementing tools and well intervention products. In addition to what Frank’s believes is a line of technically differentiated specialty cementation tools, Blackhawk also provides well intervention products through its line of brute packers and related products, and is continuing its development of products for onshore and offshore applications.

“Joining Blackhawk’s cementing tool expertise with Frank’s global tubular running services franchise will allow us to offer customers worldwide a more integrated suite of best-in-class products and services to address their well construction needs across all environments from land to shelf to deepwater,” Luquette says in a press release announcing the merger.