Word: fluor
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...summer vacation season arrives, employees at Fluor Corp. (1982 revenues: $7.3 billion) face a tough decision. Do they want more money or more time off? Those working for the California-based construction firm can add unused holidays and sick leave to their vacations and take extra, paid time off. On the other hand, they can sell their vacations back to the company for cash and spend their summers on the shop floor or behind their desks...
...acquiring company to learn the ropes and bring in its own people. It took only 16 months, for example, for John Duncan, 62, to pull the ripcord on his $1 million golden parachute after the company he headed, St. Joe Minerals Corp., was bought 18 months ago by Fluor Corp. to escape a hostile bid by Seagram Co. Ltd. of Canada...
Although the Crimson article neglects to name the company's shares Harvard owned which led to the ownership of Fluor shares, one must presume that Harvard's interest was in St. Joe Minerals, which was the object of Fluor's friendly takeover bid in April of 1981. It doesn't take much of a political observer to know that Fluor's work on South Africa's coal gasification plans has enabled that racist regime to further sustain itself, reason enough to sell, of course...
...what astounds me about Harvard's financial managers is that Wall Street was also giving off highly contrary signals about the Floor move, for different reasons. Quite simply, most analysts felt Fluor paid far too much for St. Joe--about $2.7 billion--and the stock of Fluor reacted negatively, falling out of the 50s range. The prudent move at the time was somewhat obvious: Take all of the $60-a-share bid for St. Joe that was offered, in cash, and then trade any of the shares that Fluor was offering of its own stock as soon as possible...
Ironically, Fluor is starting to come back into favor among some analysts and although its lead, coal, zinc and gold properties are still depressed, owing to worldwide prices plummeting in all of those markets, it is probably the lowest cost producer in most of those fields, giving it a solid chance to rebound from its current low position. But, no, Harvard held on to it all during its slide, and waited until it just about hit its 52-weeks-low to unload, thus cheating the endowment of a solid profit, and ignoring a chance to make a needed statement about...