Word: ponting
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Wall Street's main concern is the bulging federal deficit, which s $55.6 billion this year and rising. Government borrowing weighs heavily on credit markets already strained by brisk demand for business loans, including the huge sums to finance megabuck corporate mergers like that between Du Pont and Conoco. The Administration has predicted that the deficit will shrink to $42.5 billion in 1982, and disappear altogether by 1984. But those targets are fast slipping away. The Congressional Budget Office forecast last week that the deficit would be $65 billion in 1982 and would total an extra $50 billion...
That tactic was used two months ago by Canada's Dome Petroleum to acquire a 52.9% interest in Hudson's Bay Oil and Gas, a Canadian firm controlled by Conoco. Stripped of its Canadian holdings, Conoco became a takeover target and wound up being acquired by Du Pont...
When last week's deadline for investors to sell stock approached, Du Pont had received 47.3 million shares, or 55%, of Conoco stock. Mobil had managed to acquire only 736,000 shares, while Seagram had almost 27 million shares. After its takeover bid had failed, Mobil sold its Conoco stock to Seagram. When Seagram finally converts all its Conoco holdings into Du Pont shares, it will own about 20% of the company and be the second largest shareholder next to the Du Pont family. The stock purchase took Seagram out of bidding for any other oil company...
...companies. Those oil firms remain very attractive takeover candidates because of their rich natural-resources reserves. Moreover, more than half a dozen corporations have some $34 billion in bank credit lines that can be used for a proposed merger. The same day last week that Du Pont claimed victory, all ten of the most active stocks on the American Stock Exchange were oil and gas firms. Some of the possible acquisition targets for the major energy companies: Pennzoil, Mesa Petroleum, Superior Oil, Marathon Oil, Amerada Hess and Murphy Oil. Texaco, which was an early suitor of Conoco, is reportedly considering...
...great unknown remaining after the fight for Conoco is the Justice Department's attitude toward a merger between two oil companies. Two weeks ago, Antitrust Chief William Baxter gave the green light to a Du Pont-Conoco deal. Yet, despite heavy pressure from Mobil, he did not express an opinion on a Mobil-Conoco merger. In fact, he appeared to be indicating that he might block it, when he said: "If they think we're generally soft on mergers, they're going to be in for a big surprise." If Mobil, Texaco or another member...