US$4.1 billion Chevron Bid Wins Noble Shareholder Vote
Noble Energy Inc shareholders have approved the company’s acquisition by Chevron Corporation, cementing one of the US oil industry’s biggest transactions this year.
The vote on the 2nd October during a virtual shareholder meeting came despite opposition from Elliott Management Corporation. The activist hedge fund was said to seek a break-up of the deal because it thought Chevron wasn’t paying enough. The biggest proxy-advisory firms disagreed and urged investors to support the tie-up.
When Chevron agreed to buy Noble in an all-stock deal in July, the offer was valued at US$5 billion and represented a premium of about 7.5% to the target company’s share price.
Since then, the deal value has declined by almost US$1 billion as the coronavirus-fuelled collapse in crude demand hammered oil equities.
About 10% of votes were cast against the deal, according to a regulatory filing after US stock markets closed.
For Noble, the acquisition offered a path forward at a time when peers are struggling to outlast stubbornly low oil prices and investor frustration with a sector which has largely failed to generate meaningful returns.
Chevron, meanwhile, gained a massive natural gas presence in the Eastern Mediterranean, while beefing up its shale footprint back in the US after it walked away from a deal to buy Anadarko Petroleum Corporation last year.
Source: Rigzone