Weekend Report: Columbia Energy Pursues Consolidated Natural Gas
Sunday afternoon turned out pretty interesting, with the announcements that the two top leaders of
Compaq
(CPQ)
have resigned and that
Columbia Energy Group
(CG) - Get Carlyle Group Inc Report
has offered to buy
Consolidated Natural Gas
(CNG)
for roughly $6.7 billion, or $70 a share in cash and stock.
In February, Consolidated Natural had agreed to be bought by
Dominion Resources'
(D) - Get Dominion Energy Inc Report
for $6.3 billion in stock.
However, since the announcement of the deal, under which Dominion would exchange 1.52 shares for every Consolidated share, the value of the transaction has fallen to about $5.5 billion.
Columbia said the $70 a share offer consists of $24.50 in Columbia stock and $45.50 in cash, a hefty premium over Consolidated's closing price of 52 7/16 on Friday, and above Dominion's offer in February.
TheStreet Recommends
Turning to the Compaq news, which
shocked some investors, the world's largest personal computer maker said this afternoon that Chief Executive Eckhard Pfeiffer and Chief Financial Officer Earl Mason had resigned. Compaq's board named Chairman Ben Rosen and two vice chairmen -- Frank Doyle and Robert Ted Enloe III -- to a three-man office of the chief executive.
Over the weekend,
NATO
continued its bombing campaign against Yugoslavia. Meanwhile, Viktor S. Chernomyrdin, Russia's ex-Prime Minister, who was appointed last week as Russia's special envoy in talks on the Yugoslav crisis, is set to present proposals to resolve the conflict on Monday, according to a
New York Times
report.
Meanwhile, India's Hindu nationalist government collapsed on Saturday. Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee handed in his resignation to the India's president and agreed to stay on as caretaker until a new government is formed.
Looking to the week ahead on Wall Street, a hefty dosage of earnings reports are on tap, with corporate titans
Chase
(CMB)
,
Citigroup
(C) - Get Citigroup Inc. Report
,
Microsoft
(MSFT) - Get Microsoft Corporation Report
,
IBM
(IBM) - Get International Business Machines Corporation Report
,
Exxon
(XON) - Get Intrexon Corporation Report
,
Lucent
(LU)
and
Merck
(MRK) - Get Merck & Co., Inc. Report
, to name just a few, slated to report quarterly results.
Among tomorrow's notables anticipated to report earnings:
BankAmerica
(BAC) - Get Bank of America Corp Report
and
Eli Lilly
(LLY) - Get Eli Lilly and Company Report
.
For more on what's on the horizon for the market in the United States and Europe, please see
The Coming Week and
The Coming Week in Europe.
In Tokyo, the
Nikkei 225
average was trading lately down 78.10, or 0.5%, to 16,773.48. Meanwhile, South Korea's
Seoul Composite
was up 2.6%.
In other news:
- America Online (AOL) is preparing to bring its Internet service to TV sets, the
San Jose Mercury News reported on Saturday.
The paper, citing several industry sources, reported that AOL has lined up at least two manufacturers to build set-top boxes that can send email, provide AOL's information services and browse the Web using a standard TV set and phone line.
Delta Air Lines (DAL) - Get Delta Air Lines, Inc. Report said it was dissolving its codesharing agreement with Korean Air Lines after the South Korean airline suffered yet another crash on Thursday.
Holly Hegeman wrote about the situation on
Saturday.
Deutsche Telecom (DT) - Get Dynatrace, Inc. Report and
Telecom Italia (TI) confirmed today they're in talks about linking up.
Unionized journalists, technicians and support staff at
Reuters (RTRSY) in the U.S. voted to authorize their negotiators to call a strike if necessary, the
Newspaper Guild of New York said Friday. The vote allows the guild's president and nine-member bargaining committee to decide whether to call a strike at
Reuters America, the main U.S. operating subsidiary of Reuters.
In the Papers
An article in the
New York Times'
Money & Business section today takes a look at
Revlon
(REV) - Get Revlon, Inc. Class A Report
, which is controlled by billionaire financier Ronald O. Perelman, under the headline: "Wrinkles Under The Surface At Revlon." Earlier this month, Revlon said it may sell one or more of its businesses to juice up its stock price and repay debt.
The Market Watch column reviews last week's massive shift from growth to value stocks. Byron R. Wien, U.S. investment strategist at
Morgan Stanley Dean Witter
, cited Compaq's recent earnings warning and the
European Central Bank's
April 8 interest-rate cuts as catalysts for the shift, the column says.
Despite the handsome gains in value stocks last week, the big question is whether or not the shift is going to last. Doug Cliggott, U.S. equity strategist at
J.P. Morgan
, says the value story has staying power, the column says. One reason he cites for the staying power is an upswing in global earnings, which he expects during the next six to 12 months.
The cover story this week in
Barron's
looks at how the formally secretive
Federal Reserve
has become more open.
Barron's
takes a long look at
Siemens
(SMAWY)
, which the publication says may be ready for a revival. In an interview with
Barron's
, Heinrich von Pierer, Siemens' CEO, said the company is "seeking a number of U.S. acquisitions."
Elsewhere in
Barron's
,
Chicago Title
(CTZ) - Get Qwest Corp 6 5/8 % Notes 2015-15.9.55 Report
CEO John Rau tells the publication he plans to trim costs to boost the company's financial results and points out three strong attractions of his company's stock for value investors: a strong balance sheet, its annual dividend payout and a hefty investment portfolio. The article also points out that the company has stepped up its acquisition activity to gain market share.
Fund manager Curt Alexander of
Media Group Research
gives
Barron's
some stock picks and pans. Alexander likes
Coinstar
(CSTR) - Get CapStar Financial Holdings, Inc. Report
,
ValueVision International
(VVTV)
,
Eidos
(EIDSY)
,
SBS Broadcasting
(SBTVF)
,
Central European Media
(CETV) - Get Central European Media Enterprises Ltd. Class A Report
,
Rogers Communications
(RG)
,
NTL
(NTLI)
, and
United International Holdings
(UIHIA)
. On the flip side, Alexander said he's short
Walt Disney
(DIS) - Get Walt Disney Company Report
and
Seagram
(VO) - Get Vanguard Mid-Cap ETF Report
.
