Word: marathoning
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...despite those troubles, U.S. Steel last week announced that it was offering about $6.4 billion in cash and notes to acquire Marathon Oil, the 17th biggest American petroleum company. The deal ranks just behind last summer's successful $7.3 billion bid by Du Pont, the chemical giant, to buy Conoco, the ninth biggest American oil firm. Critics immediately began charging that U.S. Steel should be using the money for its own development. Lionel Olmer, Under Secretary of Commerce for International Trade, said that the agreement "calls into question the seriousness of the steel industry's efforts to modernize...
...Ohio-based Marathon, U.S. Steel's offer amounted to a giant Rolaids tablet spelling relief. For the past three weeks, Marathon has been resisting a takeover bid by Mobil Corp., feeling that Mobil was offering far less for Marathon's shares than they were worth. The firm has run full-page newspaper ads in protest and hauled Mobil into court to block the takeover move. Mobil had bid $85 a share for 40 million shares, 67% of the total, and proposed some other trimmings as well, pushing its offer to $5.1 billion. But that was nowhere near...
...Marathon's executives were clearly worried that absorption by Mobil would destroy their company's identity, a fear U.S. Steel sought to allay. Said Marathon President Harold D. ("Hoop") Hoopman, 61, after the agreement was announced: "We've been assured by U.S. Steel that Marathon will remain a vigorous competitive force in the oil industry...
Under the terms of the deal, Marathon's management would be retained, and the company's headquarters would remain in Findlay (pop. 36,000), where they have been almost since Marathon was founded in 1887 by 14 local oilmen. Hoopman got a hero's welcome when his Lockheed JetStar touched down last week after the deal was concluded. Findlayites swarmed around him on the tarmac, shouting, "Hoop, Hoop, hurrah!" Said one Wall Street analyst: "People did not want big oil in their town...
...such legal action will give Marathon more time to find a white knight with a superior offer. The goal, after all, is to secure the best deal possible before admitting defeat...