Why didn't Hession take the Exxon offer.

[katytrader]

Hello all. First time posting long time here watching. I bit of my history as an IOC stock holder. I bought in the day after the Exxon deal fell through and Total was chosen. I bought at 58.00 and brought my cost average down slightly to $56.00. Recently I sold all shares for $49.00 at a loss because I did not see a better outcome and after years of wishful thinking and feeling like I was deceived by Hession and BOD I did not trust the outcome and so I decided that it was time to let this toxic stock go. I was always amazed at the knowledge that some on this board have and their willingness to share. Probably the only good thing to come from this stock is the friendships that have developed because of IOC and this website. I should conclude that I believe that the resourse is there and will be proved when IOC is out of the way. At terrible injustice to the shareholders that deserves that those doing the deceiving rot in hell.

I started this thread in response to Northoils reply in the ByeBye thread:

The $400 million credit line, now $470 million, showed their dire financial condition.  THEY DIDN’T HAVE ENOUGH MONEY TO REMAIN INDEPENDENT!  Hession was brought in to sell the company.  That’s why they sold the refinery for cash, streamlining the E&P assets for sale.

What the BOD and Hession did was not irrational.  And it’s not unusual for a board to incentivize a CEO to accomplish a specific difficult task.  Hession gets both cash (yes, a lot, pre-Canadian tax), but also stock options.   Therefore, he and BOD members who hold options, benefits the same as shareholders in whatever price they’re able to negotiate.  Did they short-cut and even mis-manage the Fairness Opinion?  Yes.  However, as it turned out, they spent a lot of money and lost a lot of time to get the same answer.  So they were actually right in the first place.

I somewhat agree with this statement now but I think it bears the question that if Hession was brought in to sell the company then why did they not take the Exxon deal instead of choosing Total? I believe that if they had taken the Exxon deal we would be in a whole lot better position today as an Exxon partner likely leading to an Exxon Buyout.

As I said earlier I am no longer a share holder but I wish the best for those left holding.

  My guess is that PNG government  wanted to diversify its supermajors and made this clear to all parties.  It is also possible that Hession hoped that he could stimulate a bidding war and that Exxon chose to walk away and wait.