I have just finished reading about half of the book "THE FIRST BILLION IS THE HARDEST" by T. Boone Pickens and I finally get what happened with our FWR takover attempt.
After Boone had turned his oil and gas company into a succesful mid teir player he realized he would have to develope a different strategy to grow the company. He stopped looking when he discovered that many of the larger oil companies were undervalued, poorly run and not giving shareholders any value.
After picking out the worst of the top 25 he started a hostile take over of the company.. This attempt was met with indignation and anger by both management and shareholders even though a stagnet SP was finally rising. ( sound familiar) T. Boone was never successful in these take over attempts but did make lots of money for share holders of both companies.
I think WES started the FWR take over at the request of Rousoua, Pinetree and others.. They had large stakes in FWR and the SP had not gone anywhere. It was a no lose game for them and NOT.. The battle made CLF step up to the plate creating a greater profit for everyone including the outraged retail investor. AS T. Boone said very few owners of shares in the take over company ever thanked him for making them bags of money. The commercials sold out to clean up their balance sheet for the year, never intending on going with NOT. NOT made some money, not as much as expected but ok
A very good book.. anyways Season greeting to all and may our ship come in 2010
