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Strategies & Market Trends : Waiting for the big Kahuna -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: GROUND ZERO™ who wrote (34492)	11/25/1998 8:59:00 PM
From: Haim R. Branisteanu	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 94695

And I was thinking Oil shares are firming <gg> Exxon in talks to buy Mobil, Financial Times reports Copyright © 1998 Nando Media Copyright © 1998 The Associated Press NEW YORK (November 25, 1998 6:33 p.m. EST nandotimes.com) -- Exxon Corp. is in talks to buy rival Mobil Corp. in what could be the largest-ever industrial merger, the Financial Times reported in its Thursday editions. The London-based paper said a deal could be announced as early as next week between Exxon, the world's largest energy company, and Mobil, the second-largest U.S. oil and gas group. Rumors Wednesday that a deal was imminent sent Mobil shares shooting up nearly 5 percent. Mobil gained $3.43 3/4 to close at $78.37 1/2 on the New York Stock Exchange, where Exxon was unchanged at $72.68 3/4. "I wouldn't care to comment on the rumors and speculation that are rampant out on the marketplace today," Dave Dickson, a spokesman at Mobil's Fairfax, Va., headquarters, said. Exxon spokeswoman Karen Steffaro said, "It is our policy not to comment on rumored acquisitions, mergers or divestitures." Dickson said Mobil's stock has gyrated on similar speculation since the latest round of oil industry mergers began. Analysts have been predicting widespread consolidation in the business since this summer, when British Petroleum stunned the oil industry with its $49 billion agreement to purchase Amoco Corp. Since then, in several smaller deals, Kerr-McGee Corp. and Oryx Energy Co. agreed to merge in a stock-swap deal valued at $1.86 billion, and Ultramar Diamond Shamrock Corp. bought Phillips Petroleum Co.'s North American oil refining and marketing businesses for $800 million. Earlier Wednesday, Seagull Energy Corp. agreed to acquire Ocean Energy Inc. for $1.1 billion in stock in a deal that creates the nation's 10th-largest independent oil exploration and production company. The Financial Times did not provide a value for the Exxon-Mobil deal, but said it was likely to surpass the BP-Amoco merger,previously the largest industrial deal in history. Exxon has a market value of about $177 billion, while Mobil is worth about $60 billion. Petroleum companies have been under pressure to cut costs as oil prices slumped to levels last seen in 1986. Many of the mergers already announced have sought efficiencies by combining operations. In oil markets Wednesday, the price of Brent crude from the North Sea hit 12-year lows in London, while light, sweet crude on the New York Mercantile Exchange finished the day at $11.86 a barrel, only 44 cents off the 12-year low it reached in June. Exxon is being advised by J.P. Morgan & Co., and Mobil is being advised by Goldman, Sachs & Co., according to the report. By BRAD SKILLMAN, AP Business Writer