The shareholders of Anadarko Petroleum will vote on the company's takeover by Occidental on August 8, Reuters reports, adding that Occidental avoided a shareholder vote on the deal by securing US$10 billion in funding for the deal from Warren Buffett.
Occidental beat Chevron to Anadarko after it offered US$38 billion for the company, 80 percent of it in cash, in addition to the assumption of Anadarko's debt. Initially, Oxy offered 50 percent of the US$57-billion debt-including price in cash and the rest in stock, but Anadarko was reluctant to accept this bid. Oxy then upped the cash portion of the deal to 80 percent and won the approval of Anadarko's board.
Some of its own shareholders, however, were not particularly happy about the news. Activist investor Carl Icahn was among the most vocal ones and he launched an offensive against the company in a bid to ensure no more deals of this size are possible. The offensive envisages the replacement of four board members and the amendment of Oxy's charter.
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"It is important to add new directors to Occidental's Board of Directors to oversee future extraordinary transactions like the Anadarko transaction and to ensure that they are not consummated without stockholder approval when appropriate," Icahn told fellow shareholders in June.
Anadarko has almost 250,000 net acres in the Permian, the U.S. star shale play, and the tie-up will cement Occidental's place as the leader in the region that is driving the so-called second shale revolution.
Oxy offered Anadarko shareholders some US$73.46 per share, which represented a 57-percent premium to the stocks' closing price on April 11, which was the day before Anadarko announced it had reached a takeover agreement with Chevron. Oxy launched its bid for Anadarko almost immediately after that announcement. Chevron, meanwhile, walked away US$1 billion richer from the breakup fee Anadarko owed it for such a case and with a higher share price as traders apparently appreciated the fact that it won't be spending almost US$50 billion on an acquisition.
By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com
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Irina is a writer for Oilprice.com with over a decade of experience writing on the oil and gas industry. More