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ARTICLE: "Halliburton to sell minority stake in KBR in IPO," by AP, Indianapolis Star, 29 January 2006, p. C2.
In Blueprint for Action, I use the example of Halliburton's long and ongoing debate on what to do with profitable but problematic Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR), a unit of the company that specializes in a lot of postwar operations contracts--sort of the preeminent private sector SysAdmin firm. Halliburton has been talking about selling off the unit or spinning it off. The profitability is undeniable, it's just that the political hassles of being involved in such work eventually begins to wear on the parent company, which began and still largely thinks of itself as an oil-field services firm.
Seems like Halliburton can't completely decide what to do. If it sold KBR off, it would draw a great price, probably from a big defense contractor like Lockheed Martin, which would see the long-term market-making opportunity.
And maybe that's why it's hard for Halliburton to let go...
I think this is exactly how it will be for the Defense Department and the SysAdmin function/force: hard to keep but still harder to get rid off, because there's no denying the long-term market for the services provided.
A long-running drama worth keeping an eye on.
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