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Gold/Mining/Energy : Exxon Mobil (XOM) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bald Eagle who wrote (38)	7/31/2000 1:59:59 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 585

Exxon Mobil to Boost Estimate of Merger Savings, Analysts Say 7/31/00 9:47:00 AM Source: Bloomberg News URL: cnetinvestor.com Irving, Texas, July 31 (Bloomberg) -- Exxon Mobil Corp. will disclose tomorrow that additional savings are expected from the merger that created it in November, and may announce a stock buyback, analysts said. Chairman and Chief Executive Lee Raymond is to meet with analysts in New York to give his first update on the world's biggest publicly traded oil company since mid-December, two weeks after Exxon Corp. bought Mobil Corp. for $85.2 billion. Raymond, who last year called Exxon Mobil's estimate of $3.8 billion in merger-related cost savings ''conservative,'' will likely deliver a new forecast of $4.3 billion to $5 billion, analysts said. ''They're going to try to impress the Street with how much strategic sense the combination makes,'' said Michael Young, an oil analyst at Deutsche Banc Alex. Brown who rates Exxon Mobil a ''buy.'' Exxon Mobil will reveal ''significant'' strategic moves at the meeting, Peter Townsend, vice president of investor relations, said last week on its second-quarter conference call. He didn't elaborate. The shares of Exxon Mobil, based in the Dallas suburb of Irving, Texas, fell 3/8 to 79 5/8 in midday trading. 'Cash is Building' The company may say it plans to buy back as much as $20 billion in stock over the next five years, said Eugene Nowak, oil analyst at ABN Amro Inc. in New York. That would be about 7 percent of Exxon Mobil's shares outstanding. ''Cash is building,'' Nowak said. ''They're on the verge of re-instituting a stock repurchase, and it could be very major.'' Exxon Mobil last Tuesday reported that earnings more than doubled to a record, exceeding the highest estimates, as oil and natural-gas prices surged. Profit from operations climbed to $4.15 billion, or $1.18 a share, the highest quarterly earnings ever for a U.S. company. Even so, Exxon Mobil spent just $4.65 billion on oil exploration and other capital projects in the year's first half, one-third less than in the 1999 period, as several major projects were completed. The company likely will boost capital spending, though only by 10 percent to 12 percent, Nowak said. Exxon Mobil has said savings would come partly from cutting 16,000, or 13 percent, of its 123,000 jobs by 2002. ''I'd expect them to downplay that and indicate that they are past that stage,'' said Deutsche Banc's Young.