Activist Investor Elliott Management Goes Shopping in Shale Plays

We have mixed emotions about Elliott Management, a so-called activist investment firm. On the one hand, Elliott assisted the Rice boys in their takeover of EQT in July 2019, which turned out to be a very positive thing (see Rice Bros. Win Proxy War to Control EQT – Toby Rice New CEO). On the other hand, Elliott pressured Marathon Petroleum to sell off two of its three divisions, including what was called MarkWest Energy (see Partial Activist Victory: Marathon to Sell Speedway, CEO Retiring). Elliott succeeded in forcing Marathon to divest its retail Speedway chain, but not MarkWest (now called MPLX). Elliott is on the hunt once again. Elliott, according to Reuters, wrote to big banks in January inviting them to pitch opportunities to acquire U.S. oil and gas acreage.

---

To view this content, log into your member account. (Not a member? Join Today!)