Liam Denning, Columnist

Chevron, Oxy, Anadarko and the Meaning of ‘Winning’

David may end up slaying Goliath, but with a very costly slingshot.

May 8, 2019 at 12:08 PM UTC

Liam Denning is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering energy. A former banker, he edited the Wall Street Journal’s Heard on the Street column and wrote the Financial Times’s Lex column.

The trophy.
Photographer: Bloomberg/Bloomberg

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If there’s one thing Chevron Corp. CEO Mike Wirth ought to do this week, it’s keep his story straight – even if that means letting Occidental Petroleum Corp. take Anadarko Petroleum Corp., by dint of changing its own story out of all recognition.

Wirth has until Friday to respond after Anadarko deemed Oxy’s bid for the company superior. It could hardly do otherwise: Oxy is now offering more than $76 a share. That’s a 23 percent premium to Chevron’s bid and, more importantly, contains $59 of cash, which on its own would more than cover Anadarko’s pre-bidding price of about $47. Throw in the Anadarko board’s governance own-goals and it simply couldn’t refuse Oxy any further.