A storied name in the oil and gas business may soon go public. The owner of the world's largest well database, IHS Inc., has filed an initial public offering that could raise up to $350 million later this year. Goldman Sachs & Co. and Citigroup are the lead underwriters. Other participants are Morgan Stanley, UBS, Keybanc Capital Markets and Piper Jaffray. IHS, based in Englewood, Colo., reported revenues of $186.4 million in 2004 from its energy segment and $208.2 million from its engineering segment. Both businesses sell databases, decision- and modeling software, and consulting services. Net income was $61 million. About 50% of the revenues come from outside the U.S. The energy segment, IHS Energy, monitors E&P activity in 180 countries. It has production and geological information on 70,000 producing fields around the world, dating back to the 1880s. At one time, IHS was thought to manage the largest single civilian database in the world. Most governments and oil and gas companies are subscription customers. IHS Energy incorporates several well-known databases used by companies for decades, particularly that of Petroleum Information (PI), which was formed in 1928 in Denver. Maury, Bill, Ed and George Goodin bought PI after World War II. It published Rocky Mountain well information in a weekly, mimeographed format. By 1955 they were asking IBM to help computerize the data. Over the years, PI grew through 23 acquisitions, and was owned by the A.C. Nielson and Dun & Bradstreet companies. D&B sold PI to IHS Inc. in 1998. In recent years IHS has added energy-consulting services, including PetroConsultants SA, which was based in Geneva. Last year, it acquired premier U.S. energy-consulting firm Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA) for $31 million; Canadian firm International Petrodata Ltd. for $16 million; and two non-energy consulting firms for another $25 million. IHS' engineering segment serves the aerospace, defense, construction, electronics and automotive industries with desktop access to parts data, regulations, engineering specs and technical and design guides. The parent company employs about 1,300 people in the U.S and another 1,000 internationally.
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