Industrial conglomerate General Electric Co. and its affiliates closed the previously announced secondary offering of class A shares of Baker Hughes a GE company, according to a Sept. 16 release from the oilfield services provider.
GE and affiliates GE Oil & Gas US Holdings I Inc., GE Holdings (US) Inc., and GE Oil & Gas US Holdings IV Inc. sold 132.25 million Baker Hughes class A shares at $21.50 per share. The total includes the underwriters' overallotment option, which was exercised in full and resulted in an additional 17.25 million shares purchased.
As a result, GE and its affiliates no longer hold more than 50% of the voting power of all classes of Baker Hughes' voting stock. This reduces the number of board members the industrial conglomerate is allowed to designate from five to one. GE informed Baker Hughes that John Rice will remain on the Baker Hughes board as its designee. Lorenzo Simonelli and W. Geoffrey Beattie will also remain as board directors but not as GE designees. Jamie Miller and James Mulva will resign from the board.
Baker Hughes also repurchased 11,865,211 of its class B shares and an equal number of associated membership interests of Baker Hughes a GE company LLC from one or more of GE and its affiliates. The purchase price for the class B shares was equal to the price per class A share the underwriters paid in the secondary offering.
Baker Hughes plans to change its name to Baker Hughes Co. and trade on the NYSE under BKR.
Baker Hughes did not receive any proceeds from the secondary offering nor did it offer any class A shares.
J.P. Morgan, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC and Morgan Stanley acted as joint lead book-running managers for the secondary offering. Bank of America Merrill Lynch, BNP Paribas and Evercore ISI acted as joint book-running managers.
