Haliburton studying Expro

Halliburton is considering a counter-bid for Expro International, according to stock market rumours, despite the fact that the UK company has a agreed to a £1.605bn (€2.02bn) offer from private equity group, Candover and Goldman Sachs.

Expro merely confirmed that a third party had been given access to its books for the purpose of due diligence, but did not elaborate. Haliburton, meanwhile, has made no comment on the story.

Unusually, for an auction situation, where several bidders are vying to buy a company, Expro gave no deadline for submitting bids and simply accepted the Candover and Goldman Sachs offer describing it as representing fair value..

The stock market appears to be giving the Haliburton story some credence as Expro’s shares were trading earlier at 1,490 pence each, above the 1,435 pence offer from Candover and Goldman Sachs. At the very least speculators seem to believe other, higher bids, could be forthcoming.