DataCenterChill synthesis · Based on the primary source listed below
SLB announced on 31 August 2026 that it has signed an agreement to acquire Kelvion, the Bochum heat-exchanger manufacturer, for approximately $3.4 billion in cash plus approximately $0.7 billion of assumed debt — a total transaction value of roughly $4.1 billion. The sellers are Apollo-managed funds, which hold the majority, and funds advised by Triton, which hold a minority interest that SLB is also acquiring. Both sides say they expect to close in the first half of 2027, subject to customary conditions and regulatory approvals.
The price implies about 11 times estimated 2026 earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization before synergies, or about 8.5 times including the run-rate synergies SLB expects. SLB has told investors it expects its combined data-center solutions business to generate $4.5 billion to $5 billion of revenue in 2028. Those figures are the acquirer's projections in an announcement designed to justify a purchase, and they should be read at that weight until a filing or a quarterly result tests them.
What SLB is buying is plant, not chip-level hardware. Kelvion makes plate heat exchangers and outdoor heat-rejection equipment: the components that separate one water loop from another and get heat from a building into the air. That is a different part of the thermal chain from cold plates and rack manifolds, and it is the part that scales with the site rather than with the server. SLB's argument is that its design, engineering, and modular manufacturing can wrap around those components and let one company quote cooling from initial layout through deployment.
The transaction is worth noting for what it says about the buyer pool. Apollo's investment in Kelvion completed in January 2026 and is being sold seven months later at a headline value that a private-equity holder was willing to accept, to an energy technology group with no prior position in data-center cooling. Cooling assets are now being priced by industrial buyers who need the capability rather than by sponsors who need the return, and that changes what a specialist supplier is worth.
For anyone specifying equipment before mid-2027, the correct reading is that nothing has changed. Kelvion is still owned by Apollo-managed funds and Triton, still quotes and warrants its own equipment, and still holds its own service relationships. A signed agreement is not a change of control, and this database records it as a pending transaction on Kelvion's ownership rather than as an owner named SLB. The questions worth asking a Kelvion representative now are about continuity: whether pricing, delivery commitments, and service coverage carry through a change of parent, and who holds the obligation if they do not.
Evidence that would move this record forward: regulatory clearances in the relevant jurisdictions, a stated closing date, and confirmation of how Kelvion's business will sit inside SLB's data-center solutions unit. Evidence that would move it back: a competition authority opening an in-depth review, a financing condition, or a termination.