Energy services and technology company SLB announced today an agreement to acquire energy efficient thermal management solutions provider Kelvion in a bid to expand its role in data center infrastructure.
The transaction follows the acquisition of Kelvion last year by alternative investment manager Apollo, and values Kelvion at over $4 billion, with SLB agreeing to purchase the company for approximately $3.4 billion in cash, plus $0.7 billion assumed debt.
Founded in 1920, Germany-based Kelvion develops and manufactures thermal solutions, including heat exchange and cooling solutions for a broad range of applications including data centers, hydrogen production, heat pumps, marine, HVAC, refrigeration and the food and beverage industry. The company’s colling solutions help to drive greater efficiency and sustainability for customers across industrial and energy infrastructure end-markets.
Prior to the acquisition by Apollo, Kelvion, formerly GEA Group’s heat exchanger business, was acquired in 2014 by Triton, and has since shifted its focus towards high tech and green tech, with advanced cooling technologies for data centers now its largest and fastest-growing segment, while also providing solutions to key energy transition markets, including carbon capture, hydrogen, electrification, renewables, and heat pumps. Triton maintained a minority position in the company, and is participating in the sale to SLB.
Waleed Elgohary, Partner at Apollo, said:
“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.”
According to SLB, the acquisition is anticipated to strengthen its Data Center Solutions business which it said has already been growing rapidly over the past few years, with revenue expected to increase at a compound annual growth rate exceeding 90% between 2024 and 2026 and delivered capacity expected to surpass 2 gigawatts cumulatively by the end of the year.
Gavin Rennick, President of SLB’s New Energy and Industrial business, said:
“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.”
