Cliffs Natural Resources: Trouble in Mergertown (CLF, ANR)

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published

Cliffs_logoThe proposed merger between Cliffs Natural Resources (NYSE:CLF) and Alpha Natural Resources (NYSE:ANR) has run over more than a few bumps. Cliffs’ largest shareholder, Harbinger Capital, tried to acquire enough shares to block the deal. The big stumbling block, though, has been the deteriorating share prices of both companies. When the merger was announced in July, it was worth $10 billion. A couple of weeks ago, the value had dropped to $4 billion.

Yesterday, Cliffs announced that it was moving its shareholder vote onthe merger from November 21st to December 19th. The company said thatit "rescheduled the meeting to allow shareholders adequate time toconsider new information on the financial benefits of the pendingtransaction." Alpha immediately filed suit, claiming that the Novemberdate was the agreed upon date for both companies to put the merger to ashareholder vote.

Filing lawsuits doesn’t seem like the best way to start a marriage.Still it’s nothing personal. It’s just business. As Don Corleone wouldsay.

Paul Ausick
November 4, 2008

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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