Source: Houston Chronicle
Baker Hughes rolled out its new look Tuesday to mark its independence after more than two years of majority ownership by the industrial conglomerate General Electric Co.
The Houston oilfield service company is dropping the GE logo and exchanging its former blue letters for dark green ones.
Two arrows merged into a geometrical shape known as a mobius represent the July 2017 merger of Baker Hughes and GE Oil & Gas into a single company that earned $22.8 billion of revenue in 2018 by making equipment and software for drilling, extracting, moving, processing and refining oil and natural gas. Pointed forward, the merged arrows are shaded in green — a nod to the company’s 2050 net-zero carbon goal and technology designed for customers to reduce their emissions.
Baker Hughes CEO Lorenzo Simonelli said the global energy industry is in the middle of a transition to cleaner sources of power and that the 100-year-old company intends to help its customers evolve.
“We’ve always been at the forefront of energy and we’re going stay that way,” Simonelli said.
After Baker Hughes merged with GE Oil & Gas, General Electric, based in Boston, owned 62.5 percent of the combined company. It reduced its stake to 50.4 percent in a Nov. 2018 stock sale and then to 36.8 percent following a September stock sale that made Baker Hughes a majority publicly owned company again.
The company’s 66,000 employees got their first look at the company’s new look Tuesday morning through global watch parties of a video that featured Simonelli speaking about the changes. Packets given to each employee included new badges and other materials with the new logo.
An anticipated Oct. 17 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, will change the company’s officials name from Baker Hughes, a GE Company to the Baker Hughes Co. The company’s current stock ticker symbol BHGE will be switched to BKR on Oct. 18.
Over the next year, the new logo will be added to company buildings around the world. Field workers will receive green-colored overalls and new hard hats emblazoned with the double-arrow logo. The company is also planning a billboard and advertising campaign to create greater public awareness of the change.
The rebranding initiative began in June 2018 when General Electric said it would sell off its entire ownership stake of the company over two or three years. Baker Hughes tapped New York brand management and marketing firm Interbrand to help with the change.
“Part of this is a new message to the market as we evolve from what we’ve built over the last two years and what we want to achieve over the next 10 to 20 years,” said Baker Hughes Chief Marketing and Technology Officer Derek Mathieson. “This moment in time reflects that change and it’s also a way for us to invest in a sustainable brand that will live with the company for quite a number of years going forward.”
