Cliffs, Alpha Scrap Merger Plans (CLF, ANR)

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published

Two weeks ago, Cliffs Natural Resources (NYSE:CLF) pushed out its shareholder vote on a merger with Alpha Natural Resources (NYSE:ANR) to mid-December. Alpha promptly filed suit, seeking to force Cliffs to stick to its agreed upon date of November 19th.

It doesn’t matter anymore. The two companies issued a press releaseafter the market closed yesterday announcing that the merger agreementwas terminated. The companies cited "the current macroeconomicenvironment, uncertainty in the steel industry, shareholder dynamicsand risks and costs of potential litigation" as reasons for thetermination.

No kidding. The value of the deal had dropped by about 60%, and majorshareholders in Cliffs had been fighting the deal ever since itwas announced. Cliffs shares jumped nearly 6% in after-hours trading onthe news, while Alpha shares dropped more than 7%.

Paul Ausick
November 18, 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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