Word: fu
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...August 4, the entire board of China National Offshore Oil Corp. (CNOOC), the Chinese oil company that had tried to make history by buying Unocal, the eighth-largest oil company in the U.S., gathered at its Beijing headquarters for a postmortem. Thirty-six hours earlier, the company's CEO, Fu Chengyu, had made it official: after fencing with Chevron, the U.S.-based "super major'' oil company, for the right to buy Unocal and its extensive oil and gas assets in Asia, CNOOC was giving up the fight. The Chinese firm had been spooked both by political opposition...
...mood in the room, according to someone briefed about the session later, was one of resignation and, at least on Fu's part, some disappointment. He had pursued Unocal zealously since late last year. Just days before the meeting in Beijing, TIME has learned, his investment bankers were still pushing him to up the ante, in hope of knocking Chevron out of the game. Fu, backed by his board, demurred. The potentially historic merger?"one that everyone involved with would have told their grandkids about had it come off," says one board member?had become, as an adviser...
...CNOOC's run at Unocal, no one had exactly covered themselves in glory. Fu, the personable CEO who had gone to graduate school in Los Angeles near Unocal's headquarters, had taken a pratfall right out of the gate back in late March, failing to inform his board members about the bid until just two days before he was going to launch it. When virtually the entire eight-member board?and not, as earlier reports had it, just the outside directors?balked, Fu had to back off. That allowed Chevron to make the first bid, and forced CNOOC to play...
...Still, it took a while, one CNOOC board member says, for "reality to impinge." As late as three weeks ago, Fu and his bankers were still gung-ho, preparing to bid between $72 and $73 per share for Unocal?up from their initial $67 offer. Then, on July 19, came word that CNOOC's largest private shareholder, investment firm William Blair & Co. in Chicago, was dumping its entire stake in CNOOC?$141 million?fearful that Fu would overpay for Unocal. "We're not in favor of the bid," said David Merjan, a fund manager at the firm...
...That, says one source close to the CEO, "got Fu's attention, absolutely." For all the efforts of those opposed to CNOOC to portray it as part of a government monolith immune to commercial pressures, Fu and his managers have run one of the most transparent?and shareholder-friendly?companies in the new China. It stung when the largest private shareholder dumped its stake and publicly decried the possibility of a deal. Facts on the ground were piling up, and soon Fu began to prepare his retreat...