A year of mergers that heralds a brighter future
15 Jan 2000
As Christmas approaches it's always tempting to look back at the past year and take stock in readiness for the coming new year. But just when you think all the major events of the year have come and gone, up pops another one to focus attention on the here and now, rather than the past. This month it's the news (see page 5) that the UK engineering giants Siebe and BTR are to merge to form one of the world's largest control and automation companies, with a combined value of £9.4billion.
Despite its scale, this merger is, of course, not the first of the year to affect the process industries. Looking back at our own news pages since January, there seems hardly a month that has not brought news of one or other merger, acquisition, joint venture or straightforward sell-off. In January alone, for instance, there were contractors Krupp Uhde and Parsons Energy setting up a joint venture, Air Products paying ICI £67million for its methylamines business, and David Brown Pumps merging with the Union Pump Company.
Not that the two headline makers this month have been exactly quiet throughout the year. In March, for example, BTR Environmental was set up by merging the BTR Group filtration companies Vokes, DCE and Hoffman. As for Siebe, well, when hasn't it been involved in acquisitions? Last year, 1997, saw its acquisition of APV, followed throughout this year by Eurotherm and Wonderware, and now effectively BTR. And its competitors have not been idle either - only last month ABB announced its agreed £1.2billion bid for Elsag Bailey, while back in the summer Emerson (Fisher-Rosemount et al) added Westinghouse Process Control to its already impressive portfolio.
Meanwhile on the production side of the process industries, it's been difficult just to keep track of all the changes, as the petrochemical majors swap plant capacities and ownership at the drop of a nameplate. But one deal does stand out above all others - the proposed BP-Amoco merger into one £67billion company (see PE, September and this month, page 5).
Apart from their obvious impact on the process industries in general, what all these mergers and acquisitions have in common is a belief, firmly held by all the parties concerned, that the combinations will be better than their component parts.
Synergy has become the strategy.
Which appropriately brings us to our own piece of news. This is the last issue of PE in its current design. From February our current sister title What's new in Process and Control is merging with Process Engineering, which will then reappear in a resplendent new livery (well, we like it) to continue our role of keeping process engineers informed about all aspects of the process industries - from news and views, through technologies and applications, to new products.
