Could a Major Acquisition Rev Up Shell?
The oil patch is abuzz over the possibility of deep-pocketed Chinese energy companies striking big takeover deals in the sector. But some industry watchers are keeping an eye on another possible suitor: Royal Dutch/Shell Group.
Conventional wisdom has it that today's high oil prices are damping the appetite of Western oil majors for large acquisitions, because pricey oil makes most targets look expensive.
But after an executive-suite housecleaning and amid a corporate overhaul in the wake of an accounting debacle last year, Shell still hasn't convinced many investors and analysts that it has turned a new page. A big, strategically sensible deal may go a long way to restoring confidence in the company, some industry watchers are starting to say.
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A series of downgrades of the company's reserves of oil and natural gas reduced the Anglo-Dutch giant's energy holdings by about a quarter, making it a much smaller company than just a year ago by one important investor measure. Shell executives also have acknowledged that oil production is likely to fall this year, making for another embarrassing comparison with its two closest rivals, Exxon Mobil and BP.
The stock prices of Shell's two parent companies have recovered from a steep fall in the wake of the reserves scandal. American depositary shares of Royal Dutch Petroleum, based in The Hague, finished Friday down 21 cents at $55.72 in 4 p.m. New York Stock Exchange composite trading -- not far from its 52-week high of $57.79. London-based Shell Transport & Trading's ADSs were down 10 cents to $50.06 on the Big Board, not far off their 52-week high of $51.70.
But Shell's share price performance lagged behind Exxon, BP and many other smaller rivals most of last year.
"Royal Dutch needs to do a deal. Their reserve profile and production profile are not competitive," says Fred Leuffer , an oil-equities analyst at Bear Stearns in New York. He holds an "underperform" rating on Shell's two parent companies. Shell wasn't an investment-banking client of Bear Stearns in the past 12 months, the bank said.
One possible fit: Unocal. The El Segundo, Calif., company saw its share price soar Thursday on reports that China National Offshore Oil, a state-controlled entity known as Cnooc, was considering a bid. With a market capitalization of about $12 billion, it has untapped gas reserves in Asia, already a strong market for Shell. A Unocal spokesman declined to comment.
Shell Chief Executive Jeroen van der Veer has said he won't overpay for assets. But unlike many of his peers, he also has pointed to acquisitions as a way to replenish Shell's reserves and production. A Shell spokesman declined to comment further.
Most analysts and bankers don't see Mr. van der Veer moving until the completion of a complicated restructuring under way that will unify Shell's two holding companies and streamline a century-old corporate structure. Final investor and regulatory approval isn't expected until June.
But Mr. van der Veer -- who took over in March after his predecessor was ousted amid the reserves debacle -- has surprised markets before. He unveiled Shell's corporate restructuring ahead of schedule, and he settled a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation into the reserves scandal much more quickly than expected.
And while oil prices are way above the levels of recent years, they might not be too high to block a deal. In a September strategy session, Shell executives said oil prices had shifted "structurally higher," echoing forecasts from a growing number of industry analysts and executives and suggesting that the oil world is coming to terms with higher prices. Recent signals by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries suggest that the organization, a group of some of the world's biggest producers, will try to keep the floor for U.S. benchmark crude at nearly $40 a barrel for the foreseeable future. (Crude-oil futures closed at $45.43 in New York on Friday.)
Even before its reserves problem, Shell -- along with its peers -- was struggling to replace the oil and gas it uses each year. Reserves, a crucial investor metric, are the estimate of oil or natural gas that a company expects to some day pump out of the ground.
"I think you'll see a hell of a lot more merger-and-acquisition activity" in the oil patch if prices continue to creep toward $35 a barrel, says Neal Anderson, a Houston-based executive at energy consulting firm Wood Mackenzie. He thinks so-called super majors such as Shell might go after smaller peers focused on exploring and producing oil.
Beyond Unocal, the list of potential targets includes BG Group, the British natural-gas giant. BG for years has been rumored as a possible acquisition target for Shell, which recently has played up its focus on natural-gas projects. BG's market capitalization was about $23 billion as of Friday, just a fraction of Shell's market cap, which approaches $200 billion. A BG spokesman declined to comment.
A host of other second-tier, exploration and production-heavy companies in the U.S. suddenly are under the spotlight after word of Cnooc's interest in Unocal. These include Occidental Petroleum of Los Angeles and Devon Energy, based in Oklahoma City.
Shell faces obstacles, most notably its lack of credibility in the wake of the reserves scandal and other recent missteps. Executives still are smarting from their decision to wait out the industry-changing consolidation of the late 1990s.
Compared with its peers, Shell's stock price was undervalued most of last year based on its estimated earnings, according to many analysts. After Shell's last earnings report in October, analysts pegged Shell's 2004 price/earnings ratio at about 11, compared with 14 for Exxon and 13 for BP. Shell reports year-end results early next month.
That helped spark talk that Shell might be a target itself, though its size and globe-spanning girth could make it difficult for anyone else to swallow. Last year, Fadel Gheit, an Oppenheimer analyst in New York, floated the benefits of a BP-Shell merger at the height of Shell's troubles, though a tie-up appears almost impossible because of antitrust and regulatory hurdles. Speculation also surfaced that French oil giant Total was a potential Shell suitor before Total denied those rumors.
收购能否助皇家壳牌扭转乾坤？
石油行业正在纷纷讨论财大气粗的中国能源公司敲定大笔收购协议的可能性，但一些业内观察人士正在密切关注著另一位潜在收购方：皇家壳牌石油公司(Royal Dutch/Shell Group)。
按常理推测，目前油价高涨会削弱西方大型石油公司进行大额收购的能力，因为高企的油价使得大多数收购目标身价不菲。
尽管更换了一届管理层，并且在去年爆出财务丑闻后的公司治理也得以加强，但皇家壳牌石油公司仍未取得许多投资者和分析师的信任，让他们相信公司已经翻开了新的一页。一些业内观察人士开始表示，签订一项具有战略商业价值的大型交易对重塑该公司信誉来说或许大有裨益。
该公司的石油和天然气储备不断下调，已经减少了大约四分之一。用一项重要的指标来衡量，皇家壳牌石油公司的规模已经比一年前大幅收缩。公司高层管理人员也承认，今年公司石油产量可能会减少，在同实力最为接近的埃克森美孚(Exxon Mobil)和英国石油公司(BP)作比较时将再次面临尴尬的局面。
该公司两家母公司的股价已经从曝出储备资产丑闻后的暴跌势头中开始逐步反弹。总部位于海牙的英荷皇家石油公司(Royal Dutch Petroleum)的美国存托股票上周五在纽约证交所下跌21美分，收于55.72美元，与52周高点57.79美元相距不远。伦敦的Shell Transport & Trading的美国存托股票也在纽约证交所挂牌交易，上周五下跌10美分，收于50.06美元，接近52周高点51.70美元。
但皇家壳牌石油公司的股价表现在去年大多数时候不但落后于埃克森美孚和英国石油，甚至不及许多规模更小的竞争对手。
贝尔斯登(Bear Stearns)石油类股分析师弗雷德?勒佛(Fred Leuffer)说，皇家壳牌石油公司确实需要通过达成一笔交易来获得提振。它们的储备资产和生产状况都没有什么竞争力。他对该公司两家母公司股票的评级都是弱于大盘。贝尔斯登表示，过去一年内，皇家壳牌石油公司都不是贝尔斯登投资银行业务的客户。
可能的收购对象：Unocal。这家位于美国加州El Segundo的公司上周四股价飙升，因有报导称国有的中国海洋石油总公司(China National Offshore Oil, 简称Cnooc)正在考虑收购该公司。Unocal市值约为120亿美元，在亚洲地区拥有一些尚未开采的天然气储备。而亚洲正是皇家壳牌石油公司的主要市场之一。Unocal发言人拒绝置评。
皇家壳牌石油公司首席执行长范德伟(Jeroen van der Veer)曾表示，不会为收购资产而支付高价。但与公司其他许多管理人士不同的是，他也承认收购是扩充公司储备和生产的途径之一。公司发言人拒绝进一步置评。
大多数投资者和分析师都认为，在复杂的重组计划彻底完成之前范德伟不会在资产收购方面轻举妄动。该公司的重组旨在整合旗下两家控股公司，并精简已经维持了一个世纪之久的公司结构。但投资者和监管机构的最终审批要到6月份才会有结果。
不过，去年3月份储备丑闻曝光后接掌大任的范德伟已展露出让市场吃惊的过人才能。他提前公布了皇家壳牌石油公司的重组计划，与美国证券交易委员会(Securities and Exchange Commission, 简称SEC)就储备丑闻的调查达成和解也比人们预想的快许多。
油价持续在高位徘徊，但或许还没高到阻止皇家壳牌石油公司达成交易的地步。在9月份的策略讨论会上，皇家壳牌石油公司的高层管理人士曾表示，油价已经呈现出“结构性上扬”的趋势，这个观点不但与业内分析师和业内管理人士看法一致，还意味著全球不得不接受油价上涨这个现实。石油输出国组织(Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, 简称：欧佩克)最近的迹象也表明，欧佩克在可以预见的一段时间内将尽力支撑美国基准原油价格处于接近每桶40美元这个价位。上周五，纽约市场原油期货收于每桶45.43美元。
即使在储备丑闻爆发之前，皇家壳牌石油公司和诸多同行已经在为补充每年的油气储备而殚精竭虑。用于估算某公司截至某日可开采油气产量的储备数据在投资者眼中是一项关键的指标。
能源咨询机构Wood Mackenzie驻休斯顿的高层管理人士尼尔?安德森(Neal Anderson)说，如果油价继续向每桶35美元滑落，石油生产行业的并购交易就会猛增。他认为，皇家壳牌石油公司等所谓的超级巨头或许会对致力于原油勘探和开采的小企业产生兴趣。
除了Unocal，潜在的收购对象还包括英国大型天然气公司BG Group。多年来一直流传著皇家壳牌石油公司有意收购BG Group的传闻，凑巧的是皇家壳牌石油公司最近又一直在侧重于开发天然气项目。截至上周五，BG的市值约为230亿美元，对身价2,000亿美元的皇家壳牌石油公司来说不过是九牛一毛。BG发言人拒绝置评。
Cnooc有意收购Unocal之后，美国大大小小的二流勘探和生产企业突然都受到了关注，其中包括洛杉矶的西方石油公司(Occidental Petroleum)和俄克拉荷马城的戴文能源公司(Devon Energy)。
皇家壳牌石油公司前进的道路上还有不少障碍，最大的障碍便是储备丑闻和近期几次决策失误之后其信誉度严重受损。另外，在上世纪九十年代后期改变了整个行业格局的整合浪潮中置身事外的做法给公司带来的创伤至今仍无法愈合。
与同行相比，皇家壳牌石油公司的预期本益比去年大多数时候都被低估了。10月份发布最新一次季度业绩报告后，分析师们预计该公司2004年预期本益比约为11倍，而埃克森美孚和英国石油的本益比分别是14倍和13倍。皇家壳牌石油公司将于下月初发布年度报告。
这种情况也催生了不少传言，称皇家壳牌石油公司自己可能就是被他人收购的目标，不过它的庞大规模和遍布全球的业务范围任谁都难以一口吞下。就在它去年处境最艰难的时候，纽约Oppenheimer的分析师法德尔?盖特(Fadel Gheit)开始鼓吹皇家壳牌石油公司和英国石油公司合并的前景，但从反垄断等监管审查角度考虑，合并成功的可能微乎其微。也有传言称法国的道达尔公司(Total)是潜在收购方，但道达尔随即驳斥了这些传言。
