Oklahoma City’s SandRidge Energy Inc. said on Monday it would evaluate any offer to buy the company from top shareholder Carl Icahn after the hedge fund manager said he could pay cash to buy the U.S. shale oil producer.
One of the best known of the hedge fund world’s aggressive activist players who seek major changes in company strategies, Icahn has been railing against the Oklahoma-based company’s management for months.
In a statement on Monday, SandRidge said that it would look at alternatives to its current strategy and would also evaluate “credible” offers for the company, including any offer from Icahn Capital.
“To date, Icahn Capital has rejected SandRidge’s offer to participate in this process on the same fair basis as other interested parties,” it said.
Last week Icahn said he planned to nominate directors who would push for a sale of SandRidge and said he was willing to make an all-cash offer to buy the company in a formal process seeking a buyer.
David A. Grogan | CNBC
Icahn, who owns about 13.5 percent of SandRidge and is the company’s single largest shareholder, said he had “grave concerns” about current directors’ ability to decide the company’s future and will nominate his own slate at the annual meeting.
The current board “had a history of making poor decisions on behalf of stockholders,” Icahn wrote in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
The billionaire investor last year successfully fought to block SandRidge’s $746 million deal to acquire rival Bonanza Creek Energy Inc.
About SandRidge Energy, Inc.
SandRidge Energy, Inc. (NYSE: SD) is an oil and natural gas exploration and production company headquartered in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma with its principal focus on developing high-return, growth-oriented projects in Oklahoma and Colorado. As of December 31, 2017, proved reserves totaled 178 MMBoe, with an SEC PV-10 value of $749 Million ($835 Million using year-end strip pricing). The majority of the Company’s production is generated from the Mississippi Lime formation across 360,000 net acres in Oklahoma and Kansas. Development activity is currently focused on the Meramec formation in the Northwest STACK Play in Oklahoma and multiple oil-rich Niobrara benches across its 125,000 net acres in the North Park Basin in Colorado.
