SLB agrees to acquire Kelvion for $4.1B to boost data center cooling capabilities

SLB, the company formerly known as Schlumberger, is spending $4.1 billion to buy Kelvion, a thermal management and heat exchange specialist. The deal signals just how seriously the oil services giant is pivoting toward the infrastructure backbone powering the AI boom. The acquisition, announced on August 31, values Kelvion at approximately $3.4 billion in cash, with SLB also assuming roughly $700 million in debt. That total enterprise value works out to about 11 times Kelvion’s estimated 2026 EBITDA. The numbers behind the pivot Kelvion is projected to pull in between $2.3 billion and $2.4 billion in revenue for 2026. The interesting part: more than half of that, roughly $1.2 billion to $1.3 billion, comes from data center customers alone. SLB’s own Data Center Solutions business has been on a tear, posting a compound annual growth rate north of 90% between 2024 and 2026. Combine the two operations, and the merged entity expects pro forma data center revenues exceeding $2 billion and adjusted EBITDA of around $300 million by year-end 2026. The longer-term targets are even more ambitious. SLB is projecting combined revenues of $4.5 billion to $5 billion and EBITDA of $700 million to...