Hess Corporation HES announced today that Elliott Associates, L.P. and
its associated entity Elliott International Limited notified Hess this past
Friday in writing that they intend to file a Hart-Scott-Rodino Notification
and Report Form seeking regulatory clearance to acquire additional Hess shares
beyond those they may already own, if any. The correspondence suggests that
Elliott may seek to acquire shares valued at more than $800 million. A law
firm representing Elliott Associates, L.P. also informed the company that
Elliott is considering nominating candidates for election to Hess's Board of
Directors at Hess's upcoming 2013 annual meeting.
John Hess, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, said, “Prior to the letters
we received this past Friday, Elliott had not contacted us about their
intentions, nor have we had any discussions with them. As we do with all
shareholders who engage with us, if Elliott wishes to do so, we will meet to
hear their ideas.”
Hess continued, “We have transformed Hess into a predominantly exploration and
production company, which is part of a multi-year strategy to grow shareholder
value. This strategy is focused on developing lower risk, higher return assets
such as those related to our leadership position in the Bakken oil shale of
North Dakota.
“We are pleased that the market has been recognizing the success of our
strategic transformation as reflected by the fact that Hess shares have
significantly outperformed our peers over the past six months. Since July 24,
2012, the last day of trading before we announced our updated strategy, Hess
shares have increased approximately 34% versus 13% for our peer index. We are
confident that continued execution of our strategy is delivering and will
deliver superior and sustainable value to all Hess shareholders.
“Today we announced that we are completing our exit from refining with the
closure of our Port Reading, New Jersey refinery and we are pursuing the sale
of our U.S. oil storage terminal network. The terminals sale, when complete,
should release approximately $1 billion of working capital in addition to the
proceeds from the transaction. In the past several months, we have announced
divestitures of $2.4 billion in non-strategic assets and committed to sell our
oil and gas assets in Russia, as well as our Eagle Ford assets in Texas.
Proceeds from our divestiture program will help fund our future growth
opportunities.”
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