Kentz to be acquired by SNC-Lavelin

SNC-Lavelin of Canada has made an agreed cash offer to buy all the shares of Kentz Corporation, for a total investment of GBP1164 million, or $2Bn. SNC-Lavelin is Canada’s biggest engineering and construction company. SNC believes Kentz will provide a major step for SNC into high growth, high margin operations in the oil and gas industry – in geographic areas such as the Middle East, North America and Asia Pacific.

Kentz went public on the London stock market in 2008, and last year fought off take-over bids from both M+W of Germany and AMEC of the UK (See INSIDER September 2013 page 7). Kentz was formed in 1919 in Tipperary, Ireland. Earlier this year it acquired Valerus Field Solutions – the US based integrated oil and gas surface facility solutions provider.

With Kentz, SNC will add 14500 employees in the oil and gas sector, making their total manpower working in this sector 18500 employees, or 42% of their total payroll.

• On a similar topic, Wood Group, the Aberdeen based service provider to the oil and gas and power generation markets, is advertising on their website front page for a Mergers and Acquisitions Manager!

Latest moves in HART and FF collaboration

The FF has issued the following press release today:

The Boards of Directors of the Fieldbus Foundation and the HART Communication Foundation are pleased to announce that they have approved unifying the two Foundations into a new industry organization dedicated to the needs of intelligent devices and their integration in the world of Process Automation.

The combined power of both organizations will serve to protect the investments that end users in Process Automation have made in HART and FOUNDATION fieldbus communication technologies. The mission of the combined organization will be to develop, manage, and promote global standards for integrating devices into automation-system architectures, providing functional solutions for process automation suppliers and end users. Suppliers will also profit from the increased efficiencies in resource utilization, procedure consistency, and member service and support improvements.

The Fieldbus Foundation and HART Communication Foundation have a long history of cooperation. For example, the two worked together to develop common international standards, such as Electronic Device Description Language (EDDL) specifications and Field Device Integration (FDI) technology. Combining the organizations offers significant potential for harmonizing the procedures and efforts supporting the two protocols, as well as simplifying each technology’s implementation while better delivering their full benefits in plant operation and maintenance.

The FOUNDATION fieldbus and HART specifications will continue to exist individually, and to evolve into the future. Each protocol will retain its own brand name, trademarks, patents, and copyrights.

The new organization will continue development, support, and promotion of the two existing protocols, and will direct the development, incorporation, and implementation of new and overlapping technologies. Thus, the new organization will eventually serve as the single source for FDI, the sole integration tool for HART and FOUNDATION fieldbus technologies. The name of the proposed organization is not yet finalized.

The next step will be to complete the membership ballot by the end of summer 2014. Following a successful membership vote, legal filings for the creation of a new not-for-profit entity will take place in September 2014. As a final step, it is expected that the new organization offices will be consolidated and located near Austin, Texas, in early 2015.