Word: mergers
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...week Eivind Reiten is unlikely to forget. On Oct. 1, the oil and gas arm of Hydro, an Oslo-based energy-and-metals company he was running, completed a $36 billion merger with Statoil, its beefier Norwegian rival, creating the world's largest offshore energy operator. Five days later, Reiten hosted his country's King and Queen in Nyhamna, a third of the way up Norway's west coast, at the official launch of a record-breaking gas-production and -processing project forged by Hydro to harness gas from 75 miles (120 km) away under the Norwegian...
...week wasn't all sweet. Between the creation of StatoilHydro, as the company is known for now (the firm is still mulling over a permanent name change), and the royal ceremony, Reiten was generating headlines of his own. On the day of the merger, StatoilHydro announced it had launched a probe into the legality of approximately $7 million in consultancy fees and expenses Hydro paid as part of its oil operations in Libya. Although it has not disclosed the name of the consultancy or what laws Hydro might have broken, StatoilHydro said the payments came to light during the merger...
...Earth—including us—and could provide clues to the ultimate fate of the universe. And last week, a team led by Harvard astronomers announced they had seen such shrapnel. What the team observed was a stellar explosion, called a supernova, that was caused by the merger and collision of two white dwarf stars—the shriveled-up remnants of burnt-out stars. Typically, these gigantic explosions are thought to involve only one white dwarf, and astronomers have inferred from previous studies of white dwarf supernovae that the rate of expansion of the universe is accelerating...
...week wasn't all sweet. Between the creation of StatoilHydro, as the company is known for now (the firm is still mulling over a permanent name change), and the royal ceremony, Reiten was generating headlines of his own. On the day of the merger, StatoilHydro announced it had launched a probe into the legality of approximately $7 million in consultancy fees and expenses Hydro paid as part of its oil operations in Libya. Although it has not disclosed the name of the consultancy Hydro paid or what laws it might have broken, StatoilHydro said the payments came to light during...
...trends toward consolidation and nationalization, in fact, helped drive the Norwegian merger. To a government or national oil company looking for overseas partners to help exploit domestic resources, seeing two Norwegian firms, both largely state-owned, jostling for the same openings could be "confusing," says Mellbye. "They thought there would be some political preference given from the Norwegian authorities and then on that basis they could make a choice," he says. "But that was never done." The two companies began negotiations late last year, and when in December they brought their merger proposal to the government it was quickly approved...