Speaking from within, the former OXY Board was driven simply by the HERd Instinct.
There are two types of pain you will go through in life, the pain of discipline and the pain of regret. Discipline weighs ounces while regret weighs tonnes. Vicki is now having to understand this.
To Mr. Icahn and the Board, a crime buried without justice is never laid to rest. Do what is right and send her on her way so that the company, investors, and employees may start the grieving process.
So people think CPA’s should be running oil and gas production operations? Think not, only at Oxy!
Why would a CPA head up the unconventional? We have no qualified business savvy operations engineers? That’s the first mistake. The M&A group know very little about oil and gas, mistake number 2. VH please surround yourself with proven competent advisors, with a track record, not yes people who have never done anything until the APC transaction. I am sure the bonuses those 2 received were huge. It would be interesting to know how much due diligence was done appears to be very little.
Ure jumped over as the CEO of WES.
Michael Ure Is not with Oxy since this January. Any idea why he left ?
Vicki is taking a lot of the heat, but honestly, she didn't do this alone. Let's not forget the parade of fools that had her ear, like Jeff Bennett, CPA, and Cheerleader in Chief of Unconventional (i.e. in Chazen's words "c-appy reservoir"), and Michael Ure, the GS flunky who together with Soobs bought Red Bull, and later described it as a defensive maneuver, cause you wouldn't want the competition to get all that gas (strike one). According to Vicky, BD studied APC for two years, and found that it was ideal, so to hell with the shareholders, because Ure knows best, and a vote's not necessary (strike two). One wonders if he also advised her to go to Warren Buffet (strike three). He likes baseball, but he always struck out as a kid. He learned that he's got charisma though, and he no doubt used his wits and deception to slither out of any responsibility for tempting Vicki with the apple.