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

President Trump imposes punitive tariffs on $60 billion Chinese imports in a brand-new trade war.

Laura Hermes

2018-03-25 08:39:00 Sunday ET

President Trump imposes punitive tariffs on $60 billion Chinese imports in a brand-new trade war.

President Trump imposes punitive tariffs on $60 billion Chinese imports in a brand-new trade war as China hits back with retaliatory tariffs on $3 billion U

+See More

U.S. senators urge the Trump administration to prevent the IMF from bailing out several countries that face predatory Chinese loans.

Chanel Holden

2018-02-01 07:38:00 Thursday ET

U.S. senators urge the Trump administration to prevent the IMF from bailing out several countries that face predatory Chinese loans.

U.S. senators urge the Trump administration with a bipartisan proposal to prevent the International Monetary Fund (IMF) from bailing out several countries t

+See More

Warren Buffett approves Berkshire Hathaway to implement new meaningful stock repurchases.

Dan Rochefort

2018-11-15 12:35:00 Thursday ET

Warren Buffett approves Berkshire Hathaway to implement new meaningful stock repurchases.

Warren Buffett approves Berkshire Hathaway to implement new meaningful stock repurchases. Buffett sends a positive signal to the stock market with the Berks

+See More

Yale macro economist Stephen Roach draws 3 major conclusions with respect to the Chinese long-run view of the current tech trade conflict with America.

Joseph Corr

2019-09-05 09:26:00 Thursday ET

Yale macro economist Stephen Roach draws 3 major conclusions with respect to the Chinese long-run view of the current tech trade conflict with America.

Yale macro economist Stephen Roach draws 3 major conclusions with respect to the Chinese long-run view of the current tech trade conflict with America. Firs

+See More

McKinsey Global Institute analyzes 315 U.S. cities in terms of how tech automation affects their workers in the next 10 years.

Dan Rochefort

2019-08-10 21:44:00 Saturday ET

McKinsey Global Institute analyzes 315 U.S. cities in terms of how tech automation affects their workers in the next 10 years.

McKinsey Global Institute analyzes 315 U.S. cities and 3,000 counties in terms of how tech automation affects their workers in the next 5 to 10 years. This

+See More

President-Elect Donald Trump wants Apple and its tech peers to consider better and greater high-tech job creation in America.

James Campbell

2017-01-03 03:26:00 Tuesday ET

President-Elect Donald Trump wants Apple and its tech peers to consider better and greater high-tech job creation in America.

President-Elect Donald Trump wants Apple and its tech peers to consider better and greater high-tech job creation in America. Apple has asked its primary

+See More