Tuesday, July 19, 2005

Buy, Buy Unocal

A source close to the board of directors of Unocal has informed Alekstheblogger that Unocal will agree to be sold to the Chinese government owned company Cnoonc. This comes even as most on Wall Street speculate that Chevron's lower offer will win because of the guaranteed approval of the deal by the US government.

The source who wishes to remain anonymous wrote that Cnooc's chief executive, Fu Chengyu, has offered to raise the bid by as much as two billion more then the current $18.5 billion offer, and guarantees to set aside $2.5 billion to pay off stock holder lawsuits that might result if the Cnooc bid fails. If Cnooc goes through with raising its bid this will make the deal too good for Unocal stock owners to refuse, even with the risk of the deal being blocked by Congress.

Fu has been trying to reassure Unocal board members that Congress will not block the deal, and this article by the Seattle Post Intelligencer shows exactly why Mr. Chengyu is so confident.

To all those that have been wandering why I have been posting so little lately: I am currently on vacation and will resume posting regularly in beginning of September. If I get more information from my source I will post it as soon as I can.