U.S. take-over battle

Press, 24 April 1985, Page 39

U.S. take-over battle

NZPA-Reuter New York Mesa Petroleum’s chairman, Mr T. Boone Pickens, says he wants to own and operate Unocal Corporation, not to buy it just to break up the company and sell its assets for profit. Mr Pickens has mounted a take-over bid against Unocal, the sixteenth biggest United States oil company, but has met fierce resistance from the company. To help overcome the resistance, Mr Pickens invited Unocal shareholders to a meeting at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York on Monday. Nearly 400 shareholders and industry analysts attended. “We are sincere,” Mr Pickens told the meeting. “We want to acquire the company and operate it.” He said his group has no plan to sell Unocal’s assets or lay off any employees “except one” — a reference to Unocal’s chairman, Mr Fred Hartley. Mr Hartley and Mr Pjckens have made a con-

frontation out of the fight for control of Unocal. Defensive tactics taken by Mr Hartley to protect Unocal from Mr Pickens were “indicative of his (Hartley’s) fortress mentality,” Mr Pickens said. If his group’s offer is successful, he said, Unocal would be operated by Mesa Petroleum, the forty-fifth largest oil company in the United States.