Noble’s shareholders approve Chevron deal

Bloomberg

Noble Energy Inc shareholders approved the company’s acquisition by Chevron Corp, cementing one of the US oil industry’s biggest transactions this year.
The vote during a virtual shareholder meeting came despite opposition from Elliott Management Corp. The activist hedge fund was said to seek a break-up of the deal because it thought Chevron wasn’t paying enough. The biggest proxy-advisory firms disagreed and urged investors to support the tie-up. When Chevron agreed to buy Noble in an all-stock deal in July, the offer was valued at
$5 billion and represented a premium of about 7.5% to the target company’s share price. Since then, the deal value has declined by almost $1 billion
as the coronavirus-fuelled collapse in crude demand hammered oil equities.
About 10% of votes were cast against the deal, according to a regulatory filing after US stock markets closed.
For Noble, the acquisition offered a path forward at a time when peers are struggling to outlast low oil prices and investor frustration with a sector that has failed to generate returns. Chevron gained a massive natural gas presence in the Eastern Mediterranean, while beefing up its shale footprint back in the US after it walked away from a deal to buy Anadarko Petroleum last year.