By this time tomorrow we'll know who won the proxy battle.
12 replies (most recent on top)
As for an another thought, does it help the company to have high stock and low dividends , Then a person sales all there stock and puts it in a retirement account?
I can see both sides high stock & high dividends and it all depends where you are in your life, example if your young and building retirement you’ll like high stock and big swings. But for a retired person looks at the long term dividends. So it is good for a company to play the middle.
Whatever ultimately happens-know that it’s sad in a way that it came to this at all. When an Elliott sees something like this and acts on it-make no mistake, you have lost your way from a shareholder perspective. Badly. You’ve not done the right thing(s). Consistently.
Particularly from the pure perspective that Phillips 66 came out of the split with a scrappy spirit, given Mulva did everything possible to handicap the company (or advantage ConocoPhillips) and rushed to sell some good assets right out from under the company (Seaway pipeline) just before the split finalized in May 2012, and further starved Refining of badly needed capital.
Let’s face it, the word was that PSX wasn’t even supposed to make it at all-Chevron was long rumored to have been a suitor waiting at death’s door to take over. The Midstream and CP Chem businesses were throw-ins that Mulva didn’t want to burden ConocoPhillips with as a pure play upstream biz, but couldn’t sell fast enough.
PSX overcame all of that to become a true world class entity, making the right moves around Midstream and Renewables at the time. And the market began rewarding it. But around ‘18 or so, GG and his top lieutenants started viewing PSX as a fiefdom, and acting in that way,paying themselves like plutocrats.
And continued to delay, defer or eliminate badly needed investment in not only upgrading refineries, but in even maintaining them to meet current specs (let alone future ones).
We all saw it, and some of us warned that this couldn’t continue. But hubris had taken hold. Chems was doubled down on at the worst possible time, and some of the midstream integration took way too long. And forget about any investment in Refining. And then when GG finally stepped down-he was replaced with ML who has the same biases and simply doubled down on what GG put in place. The high ELT pay ensured fealty, and anyone raising questions or concerns got the sword. Until we ended up here.
Never should have happened, folks. We had a good thing. And hubris, greed, pi-s-poor governance, stubbornness and a bottomless thirst for power drove the whole thing into the ground.
That scrappy spirit post the split seems like so long ago-and is certainly long gone. This ELT is now very Mulva-esque. Actions have consequences - no matter what happens with the proxy vote. And we deserve them.
To earlier poster
Yes you are stupid. Sell at $200, realise the gain and buy stock in company with a higher dividend return ie Chevron.
I bet it’s like a wake on the 15th floor right now.
This is really good “long-term dividends” stock will swing up & down and you can get to the point your dividends will buy more stock then you do.
Even ELT seem to be reconciling to defeat
IMO think that the majority of the institutional vote (~65 -70pct) goes with the majority of the Elliott slate (Pease potentially is retained from PSX slate).
That’s ~70 pct of shares outstanding. The rest of the outstanding shares are retail (~30pct); simple math tells you that PSX would need to get just about ALL of this vote to win. Which isn’t possible or going to happen.
The fact that as another poster pointed out - that Norges - which is known as a VERY conservative fund - is pledging its full proxy to 3/4 of the Elliott slate is telling in and of itself, IMO.
Maybe I am stupid or something, but I care more about the dividends, especially long-term dividends. A share price of $200 vs $122.25 is great if I bought at $122.25 (ot less), but unless I sell at $200, then it's just unrealized gain. Looks good on paper, but not in my pocket.
If you were a shareholder and had to choose between these sides, you’d vote with Elliott. They are the ones saying $200/share is possible while the board and Go Go say the stock is fully valued. Easy choice. I put the odds at 80/20 Elliott.
Norges,a large bank in Norway that responsible for administering Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, has said it will vote its shares for 3 of Elliott’s board candidates.
I don’t know how much stock they own but this can’t be good news for the current board.
What are the Odd’s?
I think P66 will stay in control.