SLB (NYSE: SLB) has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Kelvion, a global maker of thermal management and heat exchange equipment. The SLB Kelvion acquisition was announced on 31 August 2026.
The total transaction value is approximately $4.1bn, made up of roughly $3.4bn in cash plus the assumption of about $0.7bn of Kelvion’s debt, according to SLB’s newsroom release. The Wall Street Journal reported the same figure.
Why the SLB Kelvion acquisition matters for data centres
The deal strengthens SLB’s Data Center Solutions business, adding thermal management technology to a unit built to serve the infrastructure boom around artificial intelligence. SLB called data centres “one of the world’s fastest-growing industrial and technology markets” in a filing lodged with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
Chief executive Olivier Le Peuch said ‘AI is driving the most significant infrastructure investment cycle in our lifetime,’ according to the same filing.
SLB expects Kelvion to generate 2026 revenue of roughly $2.3bn to $2.4bn and adjusted EBITDA of $350m to $400m, the filing shows. The company values the deal at about 11 times estimated 2026 EBITDA before synergies, falling to roughly 8.5 times once expected run-rate savings are included. SLB has flagged around $120m of annual EBITDA synergies within three years, and expects the acquisition to be accretive to earnings and free cash flow per share within 12 months of closing, the press release said. The transaction is subject to regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions, with completion expected in the first half of 2027.
A cooling core business behind the cooling deal
The purchase lands as SLB’s underlying oilfield services business slows. Quarterly net income has fallen from $1,186m in the third quarter of 2024 to $786m in the second quarter of 2026, according to SEC filings. Diluted earnings per share over the same stretch slipped from $0.83 to $0.52.
Revenue has been comparatively steadier. SLB reported $9.159bn of revenue in the third quarter of 2024, versus $8.972bn in the second quarter of 2026, filings show, pointing to margin pressure rather than a collapse in top line. The pattern spans several quarters: revenue ran at $8.49bn in the first quarter of 2025 and $8.721bn in the first quarter of 2026, with net income over the comparable periods falling from $797m to $752m. That backdrop helps explain the push into data-centre infrastructure, an area SLB is betting can grow faster than its legacy oil and gas services.
SLB shares traded at $59.395 as of the announcement window, up 3.1% on the day and 13.36% over the prior 20 trading days, according to consolidated exchange data cited by the Wall Street Journal. The stock’s 20-day range ran from a low of $51.63 to a high of $60.045.
Part of a wider industrial land grab
Kelvion itself changed hands recently. Apollo-managed funds took control of the company from Triton in a deal announced in August 2025, with Triton retaining a minority stake that SLB is now also buying out, according to Barchart. Apollo’s own release confirmed SLB has agreed to acquire 100% of Kelvion for approximately $3.4bn in cash plus assumed debt.
The Kelvion deal follows SLB’s completed acquisition of ChampionX, part of a broader strategy of using M&A to diversify away from core oilfield work, Barchart reported. It also sits inside a wider wave of industrial and chemical groups buying into AI data-centre cooling: Ecolab has agreed to pay $4.75bn for CoolIT Systems, while Eaton struck a $9.5bn deal for Boyd Corporation’s thermal business, according to sector coverage tracked by Datacenter Richness. SLB is targeting combined SLB-Kelvion data-centre revenue of $4.5bn to $5bn and adjusted EBITDA of $700m to $800m by 2028, up from more than $2bn of pro-forma 2026 data-centre revenue, Investing.com reported.
Macro conditions add a further wrinkle for capital-intensive dealmaking. The 10-year US Treasury yield stood at 4.67% on 27 August 2026, against 4.66% previously, while the 2-year yield sat at 4.2%, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis. The 10-year/2-year spread narrowed to 0.39 percentage points from 0.47, a shift that market participants watching financing costs for large industrial mergers are tracking closely as SLB works towards a first-half 2027 close.
This article is for information only and is not investment advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any asset. Markets move quickly; figures are correct as sourced at the time of writing. Always do your own research before making financial decisions.
