Spears & Associates generates 80-90% of our annual sales from subscriptions, the rest from consulting (M&A transaction support, typically).  This is why we were concerned in the mid-‘Nineties when Weatherford started consolidating the artificial lift space.  They acquired 15-20 artificial lift companies and almost every one of those companies was a subscriber to our drilling forecast, the Drilling and Production Outlook.  Weatherford itself was (and still is) a DPO subscriber, so every couple months we’d get a phone call saying, “We’ve been acquired by Weatherford so we’re dropping our subscription to the DPO.”  Ouch.  Twenty times ouch.

The same thing was happening at Schlumberger and Halliburton and Baker Hughes…  Just the Baker and Hughes and then GE Oil & Gas sequence of combinations was the combined loss of about 50 former clients.  We’ve lost 250-350 clients due to acquisition over the years.

In Greek mythology, the Hydra had many heads – cut off one and two heads would grow in its place.  And that is what happened after Weatherford (and BKR and SLB and…) would acquire a company – one or two new ones would be formed by the key people as soon as their non-competes expired…and each would subscribe to the DPO.  We love industry consolidation!

2020 and 2021 are years of consolidation, but also years of divestment and outright Chapter 7 bankruptcies.  Tough times for all, but if 56 years in business has taught us anything, it is this:  2022 is going to see a bumper crop of new clients.

We’ll be here.