Word: conoco
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Many members of Congress, including Judiciary's Rodino and Rhode Island Democrat Fernand St Germain, the chairman of the House Banking Committee, see a disturbing connection among high interest rates, sluggish growth and the merger explosion. In the bidding battle for Conoco alone, they note, the contestants lave lined up some $20 billion in standby bank credit. Though much of the financing comes from European banks, many economists and executives contend that heavy loan demands from the merger candidates help keep the U.S. money supply tight and make it more difficult for a small business to finance new machinery...
...rather than build them or to acquire mines rather than dig their own. Firms with scarce natural resources are the most tempting takeover targets because the price of their assets in the ground has increased particularly fast. For example, since the first energy crisis in 1973, the value of Conoco's plentiful oil, coal, natural gas and uranium reserves has risen from $2.6 billion to $14 billion. Experts say that Conoco's shares are worth at least $45 more than any of the bidders are now offering...
Baxter openly accepts some responsibility for the merger phenomenon. Said he last week: "The statements we've made at the Justice Department have allowed people to think about mergers that they really wouldn't have thought about in past Administrations." Mobil's bid for Conoco is a case in point. Such a merger between two of the top ten petroleum companies would never have been seriously considered during Jimmy Carter's term. Baxter insists that his trustbusters will not allow any acquisition that significantly reduces competition within the oil industry or any other. He also maintains...
Seagram has retained two investment banking firms, Lazard Freres and Shearson Loeb Rhoades, in its effort to snare Conoco. Rohatyn and his Lazard Freres staff of only a dozen handled $10 billion worth of mergers last year. Shearson's group is led by Managing Director Mark Millard, 72, who in 1963 advised Seagram Chairman Edgar Bronfman to buy Texas Pacific Oil Co. for $326 million. Seagram last year sold Texas Pacific to the Sun Oil Co. for $2.3 billion; that money is now providing the bulk of funds used in the bidding for Conoco...
Mobil, another Conoco suitor, has hired the merger team of Merrill Lynch White Weld, which is headed by Carl Ferenbach, 39. Du Pont has retained the services of First Boston Corp., whose merger mentors, Joseph Perella, 39, and Bruce Wasserstein, 33, last March masterminded Fluor's $2.7 billion purchase of St. Joe Minerals. Their fee for that deal: $3.5 million. If Du Pont wins Conoco's hand, First Boston could pocket as much as $15 million. But even if some other firm walks off the winner, First Boston will still claim a $750,000 loser...