COLUMN | And just like that... part two: Hornbeck and Helix come together; China cuts cables: US SECNAV Phelan fired! [Offshore Accounts]

And just like that… Hornbeck gets its hands on Helix’s cash and free cash flow

The slideshow Helix issued contains some choice inferences when read in conjunction with Helix’s first quarter results filing, which was issued the day before the deal was announced.

As a private company, Hornbeck has been difficult to assess, as it doesn’t publish any data, but the Helix slideshow gives some pointers as to why this deal is important to Hornbeck. Helix has a market capitalisation of just under US$1.5 billion and so the combined company after the deal will likely be worth around US$3.3 billion, a little below the US$4.4 billion market capitalisation of Tidewater.

Helix reported that on March 31, it held US$501 million in cash on its balance sheet, offsetting the US$300 million of long-term debt. It said the new company would also have the same amount of cash, so Hornbeck’s shareholders will strip out its cash before the companies merge.

In 2025, Hornbeck generated US$142 million in cash flow from operations and paid US$40 million in interest, whereas Helix generated US$137 million in cash flow from its operations. As a comparison, Tidewater with its fleet of around 200 vessels achieved US$379 million of operational cash flow in 2025.

And just like that… a bunch of people got fired

As we have seen in the big rig owner consolidations, mergers in offshore are about cost savings, reducing overhead, and reducing staff in duplicated functions to generate higher margins and lower expenses across the combined business. In the slideshow, surprise, Helix explicitly mentioned “US$75+ million of revenue and cost synergies annually expected within three years following close.”

This US$75+ million in savings will come from Helix taking Hornbeck vessels on-hire itself, the company claimed, thereby reducing reliance on those six third-party vessel charters from other owners. This upside also carries downside risk, as competitors of Helix like Oceaneering in the ROV and robotics segment will be reluctant to charter ships from Hornbeck, when that company is now a rival. This was a problem MMA Offshore faced when it bought Neptune Marine Services in Australia in 2019 and promptly alienated Shelf Subsea, once a customer but now a competitor.

Helix said that the savings will also come from support cost rationalisation and back-office redundancies, and from what the company described as “scaled procurement.” Good luck with that.

So, there will be job losses and there will no doubt be higher wages for Mr Hornbeck himself. Recall that the main driver of CEO pay is not return on capital or shareholder value creation; it is simply the size of the company a manager leads.

A bigger company invariably means a bigger paycheck for the CEO, especially for a listed company.