
ConocoPhillips is buying Marathon Oil in $22.5 billion deal
CNN
Big Oil keeps doing big deals.
Big Oil keeps doing big deals. ConocoPhillips said Wednesday it had agreed to buy Marathon Oil in an all-stock deal worth $22.5 billion, including about $5.4 billion of debt. Marathon Oil shareholders will receive 0.255 ConocoPhillips shares for each Marathon share they own, representing a 14.7% premium to the closing price on Tuesday. Shares of Marathon were up more than 8% in premarket trade, while Conoco stock was down about 3%. The merger of the Houston-based rivals follows ExxonMobil’s $60 billion purchase of Pioneer and Chevron’s agreed takeover of Hess for $53 billion. The wave of consolidation has also included Occidental buying CrownRock and Diamondback Energy acquiring Endeavor Energy Partners in multibillion-dollar cash-and-stock deals. Oil giants are flush with cash and printing bumper profits following years of elevated prices. They’re using those windfalls to snap up assets in the Permian basin — the oil field that has helped make the US the world’s top producer of oil and gas — and boost returns for shareholders even as pressure builds for them to invest more in renewable energy.

Trump is threatening to take “strong action” against Iran just after capturing the leader of Venezuela. His administration is criminally investigating the chair of the Federal Reserve and is taking a scorched-earth approach on affordability by threatening key profit drivers for banks and institutional investors.












