Word: mobilizers
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...Mobil tries some tough tactics in its battle to take over Marathon...
With stunning swiftness, the $6.5 billion battle between Mobil Corp. and U.S. Steel for control of Marathon Oil turned nasty last week. Mobil, still frustrated and angry over its defeat by Du Pont earlier this year in the struggle to take over Conoco, seemed on the brink of losing again. Then Mobil suddenly went on the offensive with a daring ploy. The oil company announced that it intended to buy up to 25% of its bidding rival, U.S. Steel. Said one banker involved in the dealing: "They have tried to put a gun on the head of U.S. Steel...
Executives of the nation's largest steel producer agreed. They denounced the Mobil move as "a very reckless action aimed solely at coercing U.S. Steel to abandon its acquisition of Marathon." Reckless or not, Mobil revealed that it already owns 450,000 shares of U.S. Steel. And at the current stock price of $31% a share, the one-quarter ownership of the steelmaker would cost Mobil only about $700 million...
Financial experts speculated that Mobil was really trying to force the steel company to drop out of the bidding for Marathon or, alternatively, to get control of enough U.S. Steel stock so that the steel company would have to give up part of Marathon. Such aggressive tactics have worked before. Dome Petroleum of Canada last spring bought about 25% of Conoco as a means of compelling that company to relinquish interest in a Canadian oil property that Dome wanted...
...latest U.S. Steel-Mobil skirmishing was a perhaps fitting climax for a year of Brobdingnagian company mergers, and it also brought out increasing protests about corporate takeovers. Mobil is now viewed by many in the financial community as a reckless predator that is willing to spend extravagant sums and stop at almost nothing to acquire another oil company. Meanwhile, critics charge that U.S. Steel should be spending its money to update its antiquated and uncompetitive steel plants rather than trying to buy a company in an industry far removed from its field...