Hello everybody, Ex XTO employee here. I worked for XTO/XOM in the Permian region for several years and left in 2022. XTO is in name only, it is an Exxon organization and has been for years. Those of you that think an Exxon takeover might be ok or welcomed need to reconsider your optimistic thinking. Here's what Exxon did after taking over XTO and they will probably follow this playbook when they take over Denbury, but speed it up. I had talked to several Mobil employees when Exxon first bought XTO in 2005 and the Mobil employees gave me a heads up on what will happen. This is obviously not Exxon's first rodeo taking over companies.
- Some of your yearly bonus gets rolled into your new salary if they determine you are below their pay scale (however, Exxon has bee lowering their pay scale compared to other O&G companies), sounds good because now you get a salary bump that's now permanent and your 401K match is based on the higher salary. No more yearly bonus for the rank and file after takeover.
- You get to keep any restricted stocks that were given to you by Denbury (if any) until they are vested, but any new restricted stocks will be given in much smaller quantity (if any because they are only given to the "Outstanding and Excellent" employees which is probably only ~15% and the metrics for this ranking is total BS). These are paid out 50% after 3 years and remaining 50% after 7 years....really long time compared to XTO that vested 1/3 every year.
- New Exxon VPs that rotate out just about every year and later on middle managers and supervisors. They talk a good game, but have no idea what you do. They want you to cut cost to become among the lowest cost operators while saddle you with all kinds of overhead. Droves of safety people that are retired Exxon employees still su-king on the teet will come to "help your organization".
- Yearly evaluation that is designed to get rid of older/expensive workers without normal severance which snags some young ones also just to make sure this farce isn't so obvious. If you get ranked as the lowest tier "Need Significant Improvement" employee then you are on borrowed time. Check out Exxon's layoff boards, they are going through this exercise right now again. Exxon has been using this to get rid of employees in high cost countries e.g. US, Europe and hiring in lower cost countries like Argentina and India. Despite high attrition Exxon still plan on getting rid of at least 5%-7% of their employees every year and has been doing this since the last downturn in 2020. XTO legacy employees were disproportionately over represented on the chopping block while scarce on the leadership positions.
- XOM stopped the 401K match completely for 1 year in 2020-2021, cut the Permian cost of living adjustment in Permian by half, really no raises for several years prior to 2022. They kept the dividends going because most executives have lots of stocks and are well compensated with restricted stock awards (probably no different for Denbury and most companies)
My advice for Denbury employees should this deal close is the following:
- If you are older (>50 yo and can hang on until you turn 55 and have 15+ years of DEN+XOM service then retire with a small XOM pension). Anybody younger and don't have restricted stocks start looking for your next job. You do not want to be part of this organization and XOM is actively ensuring that you don't get that pension that they so proudly advertise. It is so demoralizing having worked there. Good luck to you all. People sometimes think that grass is greener on the other side. Having grazed on the XTO grass and then XOM grass, I can say that XOM grass has SH*T on it so don't graze on it for too long.