Carl Icahn mulls over steps to shake up the board of SandRidge Energy after it adopts a counter poison pill.

Jacob Miramar

2017-11-29 07:42:00 Wed ET

The octogenarian billionaire and activist investor Carl Icahn mulls over steps to shake up the board of SandRidge Energy after the oil-and-gas company adopts a poison pill that aims to prevent him from scooping up more shares.

Icahn became the company's largest shareholder after he personally disclosed a 13.5% equity stake in SandRidge in November 2017. He has taken issue with the board's strategic plan to buy Bonanza Creek Energy for $750 million in cash and stock. From Icahn's perspective, this irrational deal demonstrates executive exuberance and overvaluation that would ultimately erode shareholder value.

In response, SandRidge introduces the poison pill in order to stop blockholders such as Carl Icahn and Fir Tree Partners from buying more equity stakes above the 10% threshold. Fir Tree has complained that the Bonanza deal would depart substantially from SandRidge's 2016 exit from bankruptcy because the current bid is way too high and so makes little business sense. In addition to this highly controversial poison pill, SandRidge's directors may or may not have breached any triads of fiduciary duty (good faith, loyalty, and due care) in a way that would be commensurate with the business judgment rule.

Although it is difficult to anticipate how the poison pill and its concomitant board fight will unravel over time, Icahn's race toward the top can be long and arduous. Time will tell whether his board battle proves worthy and enhances sustainable shareholder wealth creation.

 


If any of our AYA Analytica financial health memos (FHM), blog posts, ebooks, newsletters, and notifications etc, or any other form of online content curation, involves potential copyright concerns, please feel free to contact us at service@ayafintech.network so that we can remove relevant content in response to any such request within a reasonable time frame.

Blog+More

Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and JPMorgan Chase establish a new company to reduce U.S. employee health care costs.

Joseph Corr

2018-01-23 06:38:00 Tuesday ET

Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and JPMorgan Chase establish a new company to reduce U.S. employee health care costs.

Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and JPMorgan Chase establish a new company to reduce U.S. employee health care costs in negotiations with drugmakers, doctors, a

+See More

The Economist interviews President Trump and spots the keyword *reciprocity* from trade to taxation.

Amy Hamilton

2017-07-01 08:40:00 Saturday ET

The Economist interviews President Trump and spots the keyword *reciprocity* from trade to taxation.

The Economist interviews President Donald Trump and spots the keyword *reciprocity* in many aspects of Trumponomics from trade and taxation to infrastructur

+See More

Blackrock asset research director Andrew Ang shares his economic insights into fundamental factors for global asset management.

Apple Boston

2019-07-29 11:33:00 Monday ET

Blackrock asset research director Andrew Ang shares his economic insights into fundamental factors for global asset management.

Blackrock asset research director Andrew Ang shares his economic insights into fundamental factors for global asset management. As Ang indicates in an inter

+See More

President Trump tweets that he asks the SEC to assess the practical implications of switching to a 6-month corporate disclosure cycle.

John Fourier

2018-08-17 11:45:00 Friday ET

President Trump tweets that he asks the SEC to assess the practical implications of switching to a 6-month corporate disclosure cycle.

In accordance with the extant corporate disclosure rules and requirements, all U.S. public corporations have to report their balance sheets, income statemen

+See More

China President Xi tries to ease trade tension between America and China in his Boao presidential address.

Monica McNeil

2018-04-02 07:33:00 Monday ET

China President Xi tries to ease trade tension between America and China in his Boao presidential address.

China President Xi JinPing tries to ease trade tension between America and China in his presidential address at the annual Boao forum. In his vulnerable att

+See More

Macro eigenvalue volatility helps predict some recent episodes of high economic policy uncertainty.

James Campbell

2020-09-15 08:38:00 Tuesday ET

Macro eigenvalue volatility helps predict some recent episodes of high economic policy uncertainty.

Macro eigenvalue volatility helps predict some recent episodes of high economic policy uncertainty, recession risk, or rare events such as the recent rampan

+See More