In January, under pressure from Elliott Management, Marathon Petroleum(MPC) announced a formal review of the company’s strategic options for its Speedway business. At the time, it seemed that a spinoff was both Elliott’s goal and a likely outcome of the review process. After all, the industry has seen several petroleum companies spin off their convenience store divisions. Marathon… Read More »
We didn’t really cover this saga, but last year Hess Corporation (HES) was embroiled in a heated proxy battle with Paul Singer’s Elliott Management. The fund argued (and put together a nice presentation) that the company was poorly managed, had lousy governance (too many cronies on the board) and was undervalued on a sum of the parts basis.… Read More »
Murphy USA(MUSA) completed its first day of trading yesterday following its spinoff from Murphy Oil(MUR). The business, which is primarily Murphy’s retail gas station network, will be led by R. Andrew Clyde. Former parent Murphy Oil has new leadership as well, with the retiring Steven Cosse being replaced by Roger Jenkins. The spinoff, which was completed after the… Read More »
Murphy Oil’s (MUR) board of directors formally approved the spinoff of its US retail marketing business, Murphy USA Inc, recently. The distribution is expected to be tax free and is set for August 30th to shareholders of record on August 21st. The new company will trade on the NYSE under the ticker ‘MUSA’ and MUR shareholders will receive… Read More »
After deciding to pursue a spinoff, one of the next big decisions facing a company is figuring out who will lead the new company. After all, one of the ‘value drivers’ of a spin is highly focused management…but that only helps if they know what they are doing. That is why most companies just end up promoting from… Read More »
After close to a year of deliberation, Murphy Oil (MUR) announced that its board of directors approved the spin off of its downstream subsidiary, Murphy Oil USA. The transaction is expected to be completed in 2013 and is a continuation of the process started earlier this year when Murphy announced that it was ‘considering its strategic options’ for its retail unit. As a… Read More »
‘Everyone else is doing it’. Unfortunately, that line never worked for me as a child [it was always met with something like ‘if everyone else was jumping off a bridge…’ or ‘well, you are part of this family’], but apparently it is the new motto for integrated energy companies. Many players in the space appear to be operating… Read More »