Posts for Ticker ‘E’

Italy’s ENI Grows In Texas, Via Quicksilver (E, KWK, UNG)

Italian energy giant Eni SpA (NYSE:E) has acquired a 27.5% interest in the leases of Quicksilver Resources Inc. (NYSE:KWK) in Quicksilver’s Alliance properties in the Fort Worth basin. Quicksilver will receive $280 million in cash from the transaction, which the company will be used to pay down debt.
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Posted on: May 18, 2009 – 8:01 am in Mergers and Buy Outs, Oil & Gas, , ,

Margin Squeeze & Contract Changes Up & Down Oil Patch? (TOT, BP, RDS-A, E, SLB, HAL)

offshore-rig-pic52Several of the big oil companies are putting the squeeze on oil field services providers to renegotiate contracts and lower costs for drilling services. BP plc (NYSE:BP), Total SA (NYSE:TOT), and Royal Dutch Shell plc (NYSE:RDS-A) are reportedly asking for reductions of as much as 40% from European contractors Technip SA, CGGVeritas, and Saipem SpA, a subsidiary of Italian oil major Eni SpA (NYSE:E).

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Posted on: April 6, 2009 – 8:18 am in Oil & Gas, , , , , ,

Oil & Energy Upgrades & Downgrades (APA, DNR, E, XOM, OXY, PXP, RDS.A, SPWRA)

oil-well-image4These are the top analyst calls we have seen in the oil patch and in the energy sector this Monday morning:

  • Apache (NYSE: APA) Raised to Outperform at Credit Suisse.
  • Denbury Resources Inc. (NYSE: DNR) Cut to Neutral at Credit Suisse.
  • ENI S.p.A. (NYSE: E) Raised to Overweight at JPMorgan.
  • Exxon Mobil (NYSE: XOM) Started as Buy at Citigroup.
  • Occidental Petroleum (NYSE: OXY) Cut to Neutral at Credit Suisse.
  • Plains Exploration (NYSE: PXP) Cut to Neutral at Credit Suisse.
  • Royal Dutch Shell (NYSE: RDS.A) Cut to Market Perform at Sanford Bernstein.
  • SunPower (NASDAQ: SPWRA) Cut to Underweight at Morgan Stanley.

JON C. OGG

Posted on: March 16, 2009 – 7:20 am in Alternative Energy, Analyst Calls, Oil & Gas, , , , , , , ,

Caspian Crude Barely Flowing (BP, CVX, STO, E, TOT, COP, HES)

Oil_gas_pipeline_picOil is trading sharply higher this morning, partly because of oil pipeline and delivery disruptions. Platts reported that crude oil flows through the BTC pipeline have dropped from about 800,000 b/d to 250,000-280,000 b/d. The cause of the reduced flows is the shut-in of about 60% of production in a field operated by BP plc (NYSE:BP). The shut-ins followed the appearance of gas bubbles in the sea around one of the platforms.

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Posted on: September 22, 2008 – 10:55 am in Oil & Gas, , , , , , ,

Will Berkshire Hathaway Lower Its Buyout Standards?

Berkshire Hathaway (BRK/A) may be setting its sights lower as far as the size of a merger it would pursue.  Reuters has reported that Warren Buffett gave an interview to a Swiss newspaper called Finanz and Wirtschaft saying the company was primarily interested in large takeovers.  Buffett said they would happily buy things in the $5 billion to $20 billion range, although potential targets are rare.  Buffett did note that they were confident they would be able to conclude several larger transactions soon in the interview.

We just ran several buyout targets that we widened out to fit the bill for a "whale" of an acquisition on Monday.

If Buffett looks at smaller companies then he will have a lot more to choose from.  It is somewhat surprising that Buffett has not looked at the retail and commercial banking sector since there are so many with healthy balance sheets and surpressed prices due to a temporarily inverted yield curve.  He has also failed on his promise to go big into power generation operations, and there are perhaps 5 or 6 names he could easily approach in that sector.

The truth is that if Buffett stoops down into the $5 billion to $20 billion range then there will be many opportunities for him.  Perhaps the largest reason for looking at larger deals is that he is probably concerned that he will be one-upped in a higher bid for any deal he considers in that $5 billion to $20 billion range.

Regardless of his comments, he needs to remove T-Bills as his single largest public investment at the current time.  Being too picky and just sitting on the sidelines for too long can come across as indecisive, even if you have made yourself into one of the world’s richest men. 

Jon C. Ogg
May 9, 2007

Jon Ogg can be reached at jonogg@247wallst.com; he does not own securities in any of the companies he covers.

Posted on: May 9, 2007 – 7:22 am in Conglomerates, Mergers and Buy Outs, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Berkshire Hathaway’s “Whale” Acquisition; Who Could It Be?

Stocks to Watch: BRK/A, MRO, TRV, WM, ALL, LEH, CHA, REP, OXY, DOW, VLO, E, MET, BF, DB, SNP

Warren Buffett was noted this weekend as saying he is tempted to find a "Whale" of an acquisition rather than just trying to catch a big fish.  Everyone knows that Buffett has called technology a widget that he wouldn’t buy, so what could this mean?

We screened stocks with some valuations that would entail Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-A) either selling many stakes it holds in public companies or that would require it to raise capital from the markets.  In order to do this we looked at the balance sheet and decided that the company cut off mark would be somewhere in the vicinity of $35 Billion for the company to still have ample cash to operate without stretching or minimizing activities.  We decided to go up to $80 Billion as the ceiling, thinking that Buffett could probably sell the idea and considering that this amount ‘could’ still occur if he stretched it big time.  He has already said that Geography is not a barrier any longer. 
The companies that trade at $35 billion to $80 billion have price to book value ratios of Less than 2.5, Price-to Earnings ratios of 15.0 or less, forward Price to earnings ratios of under 14.0.  There are many other measures such as discounted cash flows and return on equity that we could have run, but we thought we’d see what comes up. 

Companies that did not have ADR’s were screened out, even though this may not be fair.  He has mostly stayed away from energy companies, but his PetroChina (PTR) stake made us leave this in.  He has stayed away from banks, but since he has been aggressive into insurance we decided to keep this in there.

Here are some of the companies that showed up in the screen:
Marathon Oil (MRO), Travelers (TRV), Washington Mutual (WM), Allstate (ALL), Lehman (LEH), China Telecom (CHA), Repsol (REP), Occidental Petroleum (OXY), Dow Chemical (DOW), Valero (VLO), E N I (E), MetLife (MET), BASF (BF), Deutsche Bank (DB), China Petrolem (SNP). 

Here is the problem in evaluating the companies above: If you don’t think Buffett would take on the huge additional risks in insurance or if you think he’d shy away from a bank or brokerage firm, then Buffett would need to go into the chemical companies or into energy and refining.  Even if you scale down the size to say $20 Billion, you have the same type of companies in the mix, except you bring in some metal and commodity names.

What is the biggest problem in having roughly $40 Billion in cash and equivalents?  It’s obviously trying to put the money to work.  Buffett is not under the same pressure as private equity to put his cash to work.  His track record speaks for itself, but you have to wonder about the company down the road and what its strategy will be.  How far will they diversify?  Will they diversify?  When your holding period you evaluate a business on is "Forever" it makes for some interesting problems to have.

Jon C. Ogg
May 7, 2007

Jon Ogg can be reached at jonogg@247wallst.com; he does not own securities in any of the companies he covers.

Posted on: May 7, 2007 – 1:48 pm in Conglomerates, Financial Stocks, Mergers and Buy Outs, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,