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

Kobe Bryant and several other star athletes have been smart savvy investors.

Charlene Vos

2019-08-08 09:35:00 Thursday ET

Kobe Bryant and several other star athletes have been smart savvy investors.

Kobe Bryant and several other star athletes have been smart savvy investors. In collaboration with former Web.com CEO Jeff Stibel, the NBA champion invests

+See More

AT&T wins court approval to take over Time Warner with a trademark $85 billion bid despite the Trump prior dissent due to antitrust concerns.

Chanel Holden

2018-06-07 10:36:00 Thursday ET

AT&T wins court approval to take over Time Warner with a trademark $85 billion bid despite the Trump prior dissent due to antitrust concerns.

AT&T wins court approval to take over Time Warner with a trademark $85 billion bid despite the Trump administration prior dissent due to antitrust conce

+See More

Product market competition and online ecommerce help constrain money supply growth with low inflation.

Peter Prince

2019-09-25 15:33:00 Wednesday ET

Product market competition and online ecommerce help constrain money supply growth with low inflation.

Product market competition and online e-commerce help constrain money supply growth with low inflation. Key e-commerce retailers such as Amazon, Alibaba, an

+See More

Corporate ownership governance theory and practice

Monica McNeil

2022-04-25 10:34:00 Monday ET

Corporate ownership governance theory and practice

Corporate ownership governance theory and practice  The genesis of modern corporate governance and ownership studies traces back to the seminal work

+See More

Chicago finance professor Raghuram Rajan suggests that free markets need populist support against an unholy alliance of private-sector and state elites.

John Fourier

2019-05-21 12:37:00 Tuesday ET

Chicago finance professor Raghuram Rajan suggests that free markets need populist support against an unholy alliance of private-sector and state elites.

Chicago finance professor Raghuram Rajan shows that free markets need populist support against an unholy alliance of private-sector and state elites. When a

+See More

Artificial intelligence continues to push boundaries for tech titans to sustain their disruptive innovations and competitive advantages.

Chanel Holden

2020-11-01 11:21:00 Sunday ET

Artificial intelligence continues to push boundaries for tech titans to sustain their disruptive innovations and competitive advantages.

Artificial intelligence continues to push boundaries for several tech titans to sustain their central disruptive innovations, competitive moats, and first-m

+See More