SLB Expands Data Center Role with $3B Kelvion Deal

SLB announced Monday that it has signed an agreement to acquire Kelvion, which it describes as a global provider of thermal management and heat exchange technologies, for around $3.4 billion in cash.

Under the terms of the deal, SLB will acquire Kelvion from Apollo-managed funds, the majority owner, and funds advised by Triton, which holds a minority interest, for approximately $3.4 billion in cash, and SLB will assume approximately $0.7 billion of debt, according to a statement posted on SLB’s site. This represents a total transaction value of approximately 11 times estimated 2026 EBITDA before synergies, or approximately 8.5 times EBITDA including expected annual run-rate synergies, SLB highlighted.

“The acquisition strengthens SLB’s Data Center Solutions business with critical thermal management technologies and expands the company’s role in data center infrastructure, which is one of the world’s fastest-growing industrial and technology markets,” SLB noted in its statement.

The company highlighted that it expects the transaction to be accretive to both earnings per share and free cash flow per share in the first 12 months following closing. SLB revealed in the statement that it expects to generate approximately $120 million in annual EBITDA synergies within three years “from cost efficiencies and incremental revenue opportunities”.

SLB noted in its statement that the company and Kelvion are expected to generate more than $2 billion in data center revenue and approximately $300 million in adjusted EBITDA on a pro-forma basis in 2026.

“Building on that foundation, SLB is targeting revenue of $4.5 billion to $5 billion and adjusted EBITDA of $700 million to $800 million for its combined data center solutions business in 2028,” SLB revealed.

Following the transaction, SLB said it will retain “a strong investment-grade balance sheet with net debt-to-EBITDA ratio remaining within its previously stated through-cycle target of up to 1.5 times”.

“The company also reaffirms its commitment to return more than $4 billion to shareholders in 2026 through dividends and share repurchases. While formal 2027 targets will be finalized as part of the annual planning process, SLB expects total returns to shareholders to be at least in line with 2026 levels,” it added.

The deal is subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals, SLB noted, highlighting that the transaction is expected to close in the first half of 2027.

“AI is driving the most significant infrastructure investment cycle in our lifetime,” Olivier Le Peuch, Chief Executive Officer of SLB, said in the statement.

 “This transaction accelerates our ambition to become an industrial technology partner to the data center industry and help customers address the growing infrastructure complexity required to scale AI,” he added.

“Kelvion advances our path toward more integrated data center infrastructure solutions, expands our addressable market, more than doubling our revenue opportunity per gigawatt of delivered capacity, and allows us to scale both our offerings and the global reach of the business,” he continued.

Gavin Rennick, president of SLB’s New Energy and Industrial business, said in the statement that “data centers are becoming more sophisticated and energy-intensive, and customers are increasingly looking for partners that can optimize how critical systems work together across the facility and help bring new capacity online faster,”

“Thermal management is central to that challenge, and this acquisition allows us to address it directly by delivering more integrated cooling solutions, accelerating innovation, optimizing thermal efficiency, and more directly embedding thermal management into our modular infrastructure offering,” he added.

SLB pointed out in its statement that its data center solutions business has grown “rapidly” over the past few years, outlining that its revenue is expected to increase at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) exceeding 90 percent between 2024 and 2026 and that its delivered capacity is expected to surpass two gigawatts cumulatively by the end of the year.

Kelvion’s portfolio spans a broad range of cooling and heat-transfer applications, positioning the company at the intersection of two powerful long-term growth trends: AI infrastructure and energy system transformation, SLB noted in its statement. In 2026, Kelvion is expected to generate revenue of approximately $2.3 billion to $2.4 billion and adjusted EBITDA of approximately $350 million to $400 million, SLB pointed out, noting that data centers represent Kelvion’s largest and fastest-growing end market, with revenue expected to reach between $1.2 billion and $1.3 billion in 2026.

In a statement posted on its website, Kelvion confirmed that SLB had entered into definitive agreement to acquire 100 percent of Kelvion for approximately $3.4 billion in cash. The statement highlighted that Kelvion is majority owned by Apollo-managed funds and added that funds advised by Triton hold a minority interest, which would also be acquired by SLB.

“As part of SLB, Kelvion is expected to further strengthen its offering to customers, complementing SLB’s data center solutions business with critical thermal management technologies, expanding the company’s role in data center infrastructure,” Kelvion said in this statement.

Andy Blandford, CEO of Kelvion, said in the statement, “[This] is a significant milestone for Kelvion that reflects the dedication of our employees around the world”.

“I would like to thank Apollo Funds, Triton and our customers for their partnership and support. Together, we have transformed Kelvion into a fast-growing, highly successful global business with leading positions in both Data Centers and Diversified Industrials,” he added.

“We are excited to become part of SLB, a global technology leader whose innovation capabilities, international reach and long-term vision make it an ideal home for Kelvion,” he continued.

Waleed Elgohary, Partner, Apollo, said in the statement, “from the outset, our focus was on giving Kelvion management the resources and strategic support to pursue the company’s most compelling growth opportunities, chief among them bringing energy efficiency solutions to the AI buildout”.

“Management has done an excellent job executing its strategic plans and collectively we believe long-term growth will accelerate as part of SLB, a global leader in energy services that’s applying its expertise to data center development around the world,” he added.

In a release sent to Rigzone earlier this year, the International Energy Agency (IEA) highlighted data center electricity use surged in 2025 despite “tightening bottlenecks driving a scramble for solutions”.

The release - which pointed to a new report at the time from the organization that “explore[d]… AI’s growing energy footprint, options for meeting data center power demand, and impacts on energy affordability, security and wider economy” - outlined that the new analysis found that the field “has continued to develop at speed”.

“Driven by data center investments, the capital expenditure of five large technology companies surged to more than $400 billion in 2025 and is set to increase by a further 75 percent in 2026,” the IEA said in the release.

“Electricity demand from data centers soared by 17 percent in 2025, and that of AI-focused data centers climbed even faster - well outpacing growth in global electricity demand of three percent,” the IEA added.

The IEA stated in its release that, according to its report, power consumption per AI task is declining rapidly, “with efficiency improving at a rate unprecedented in energy history”. It noted, however, that more people are using AI, and said energy intensive uses, such as AI agents, are on the rise.

“As a result, electricity consumption from data centers is set to double by 2030, and power use from those focused on AI is poised to triple,” the IEA projected.

“At the same time, AI deployment is increasingly coming up against a range of physical bottlenecks, limiting the rate at which data centers can expand in the near-term,” it added.

“Supply chains for energy technologies such as gas turbines and transformers, as well as for advanced chips and IT components, have tightened over the past year - and the swelling pipeline of data center projects is straining planning and regulatory systems, holding up grid connections and other necessary approvals,” it continued.

To contact the author, email andreas.exarheas@rigzone.com