Expro is an energy services provider headquartered in Houston, Texas, United States.

History

The company was founded by J. Trewhella, J. Ross and H. Green in 1973 at

Great Yarmouth Great Yarmouth (), often called Yarmouth, is a seaside resort, seaside town and unparished area in, and the main administrative centre of, the Borough of Great Yarmouth in Norfolk, England; it straddles the River Yare and is located east of ...

as Exploration & Production Services (North Sea) Ltd with the objective of carrying out well testing in the

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian S ...

. In 1986, about 84% of the company was acquired by

Flextech Living TV Group was a British television consortium originally called Flextech before becoming a subsidiary of British Sky Broadcasting, with Challenge still broadcasting. Living TV Group had several owned channels, available in the United K ...

from whom the management subsequently bought out the business in 1992. The company was first listed on the

London Stock Exchange London Stock Exchange (LSE) is a stock exchange in the City of London, England, United Kingdom. , the total market value of all companies trading on LSE was £3.9 trillion. Its current premises are situated in Paternoster Square close to St Pa ...

in 1994. In 2006, it acquired PowerWell Services, another leading well management concern, for $674.5 million.

Takeover

In May 2008,

Halliburton Halliburton Company is an American multinational corporation responsible for most of the world's hydraulic fracturing operations. In 2009, it was the world's second largest list of oilfield service companies, oil field service company. It has o ...

made a £1.7 billion takeover of the business, while a competing bid worth £1.8bn was made the following month by Umbrellastream, a

Candover Candover may refer to: *Candover Brook, Hampshire, England *The Candovers, civil parish in Hampshire, comprising ** Brown Candover ** Chilton Candover **Preston Candover *Candover Clinic, Hampshire *Candover Investments Candover Investments plc. w ...

-led consortium also comprising Goldman Sachs and Alpinvest. An improved bid from Halliburton was then rejected by the Expro board, a position backed by the High Court after an appeal lodged by a group of

activist shareholder An activist shareholder is a shareholder who uses an equity stake in a corporation to put pressure on its management. A fairly small stake (less than 10% of outstanding shares) may be enough to launch a successful campaign. In comparison, a full t ...

s. The acquisition of Expro by Umbrellastream was completed in July 2008. In March 2021 Expro announced a merger with Frank's International. The merger was completed in October 2021 and began trading under NYSE:XPRO.

References

External links

* {{Authority control Companies based in Reading, Berkshire Companies formerly listed on the London Stock Exchange Business services companies established in 1973 1973 establishments in England Oilfield services companies Engineering companies of the United Kingdom Privately held companies of the United Kingdom Technology companies established in 1973