No turning back: Burlington Resources president and chief executive Bobby Shackouls
$1bn penalty if Burlington breaks deal
Natural gas producer Burlington Resources could owe ConocoPhillips a $1 billion termination fee if it breaks its deal to be acquired by the oil giant, according to merger documents filed with regulators today.
ConocoPhillips and Burlington Resources announced their merger on Monday, in which ConocoPhillips agreed to pay $46.50 in cash and 0.7214 of a ConocoPhillips share per Burlington share.
At those rates the deal was worth $33.64 billion as of this morning, a premium of about 3% per Burlington share.
The break-up fee would be required if Burlington terminated the deal to pursue a merger or other combination with another company, under specific terms in the agreement, or if it failed to fulfil specified obligations to ConocoPhillips.
Shares in ConocoPhillips were down 42 cents at $57.79 in morning New York Stock Exchange trade today, while Burlington shares were down 42 cents at $85.85. Since the beginning of this week, ConocoPhillips shares are off 8.4% while Burlington shares are up 12.6%.
Moody's Investors Service said it may raise its ratings on Burlington and affirmed its ratings on ConocoPhillips as a result of the merger deal.
The ratings "reflects the benefits of size and scale in the transaction, which places ConocoPhillips more securely among the top tier of integrated oil companies with an increased gas component in its upstream operations," Moody's said in a statement.