By Paul R. La Monica
Oil drillers and other energy stocks have unsurprisingly gushed this year thanks to crude prices, which have surged due to the war in Iran and resulting supply constraint concerns.
Shares of energy technology and equipment company Baker Hughes and Norway's oil services investing firm Akastor have each soared nearly 40% in 2026, for example. Now, an oil services company co-owned by both companies is set to go public and capitalize on the oil stock boom.
HMH Holding, a provider of oil drilling equipment and other services, said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing this week that it plans to go public at a price between $19 and $22 a share. It is expected to begin trading on the Nasdaq next week under the ticker symbol HMH.
HMH plans to sell a little more than 10.5 million shares and would raise $231.4 million at the high end of its price range. The company would be valued at $948.1 million at the $22 price.
That seems like a fairly reasonable valuation for the company. At the $22 price, HMH would be trading at around 1.2 times its 2025 sales of $821.8 million. Baker Hughes, by way of comparison, trades at 2.2 times revenue for last year, while rivals Halliburton and SLB are valued at 1.4 and 2 times 2025 sales, respectively.
HMH is profitable, too. It generated net income of $46.1 million last year, although that is down 11% from the $52 million profit in 2024. But at 20.5 times trailing earnings, HMH is also trading at a slight discount on a price-to-earnings basis to larger oil services firms. Baker Hughes, SLB, and Halliburton are valued at between 21 and 25 times last year's profits.
If HMH has a splashy debut, that would be a windfall for Baker Hughes and Akastor, which are currently 50-50 owners of HMH. Following the IPO, Baker Hughes and Akastor would each own between a 35.2% and 37% stake in HMH, depending on whether underwriters exercise an option to purchase shares. JPMorgan Chase, Piper Sandler, and Evercore ISI are the lead bankers on the deal, with several other investment banks involved as joint bookrunners and co-managers for the IPO.
The IPO market enjoyed a solid year in 2025 and is off to a decent start this year. There has been a bit of a lull in new offerings in March, which is typical for this time of the year. Some of the companies that have made their debuts have done well, despite the broader market volatility related to oil and Iran.
Japanese fintech PayPay, a mobile digital wallet, is up more than 40% from its IPO price following its listing on March 12. Senior housing real estate firm Janus Living also went public in March, and shares are up almost 20% from their IPO price. And then there's Swarmer, the tiny drone company that has soared more than 600% from its IPO price after it raised $15 million by selling only 3 million shares for just $5 apiece.
MiniMed, a diabetes management company that is a carve-out of medical equipment giant Medtronic, is the one notable IPO laggard this month. It's down about 17% from its offering price.
Investors are anticipating a wave of giant offerings later this year, as Elon Musk's SpaceX and artificial-intelligence giants OpenAI and Anthropic are all expected to file for IPOs at some point in 2026.
Write to Paul R. La Monica at paul.lamonica@barrons.com
This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 25, 2026 03:30 ET (07:30 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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