CF's CEO Tells TheStreet: 'Let's Move On'

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- CF Industries(CF) Chief Executive Stephen Wilson wants to move on.

That's not surprising. Now that his company has bagged its long-pursued quarry -- finally convincing Terra Industries(TRA) to sell itself for about $4.6 billion in cash and stock in a deal announced Friday -- CF would like nothing more than to focus on integrating the two companies, which will create one of the biggest fertilizer producers in the world.

But in many ways the most interesting part of this particular corporate marriage -- more arranged than of true love -- is the inside-story of the drama that unfolded over the last 14 months, as CF Industries pursued its hostile takeover attempt of Terra while, at the same time, attempting to fend off its own aggressive and unwanted suitor, Agrium(AGU). (Agrium, for its part, relinquished its hostile bid for CF on Thursday; its offer for the Deerfield, Ill., company was conditioned on CF giving up on Terra.)

In an interview with TheStreet on Friday, Wilson was sticking close to his talking points.

"Our focus today is on putting the two companies together and looking ahead," he said.

Still, there was the seeming disconnect between CF's words in January, when the company announced it was giving up its effort to buy Terra, and the eagerness with which it boosted the value of its bid in coming back to the table three weeks later, after Yara Industries had swooped in and wooed Terra into its Norwegian fold.

Back in January, before Yara entered the picture, Wilson said in a statement that it wasn't in "the best interests of CF Industries stockholders" to chase Terra by offering it a deal it couldn't refuse.

So why was it in the best interests of CF shareholders now? What changed?

"What changed is that we found out that Terra was, in fact, for sale," Wilson said. Other sources close to the situation have indicated that Terra made itself unavailable to any kind of negotiation at all during the year of CF's pursuit -- an allegation seemingly corroborated by Wilson Friday. But he didn't want to talk about it much.

"Prior to [the Yara-Terra deal], we had no indication that Terra was for sale," he said. "We are very comfortable acquiring Terra at this valuation; we believe this is a value-creating merger for our stockholders."