US oil company Unocal Corp's directors held a meeting ahead of a shareholder vote next month that will decide between two hotly contested takeover bids including one from China.
The depth of the challenge facing the state-owned China National Offshore Oil Corp Ltd (CNOOC,
In a statement issued on Thursday from the meeting in the California town of El Segundo, Unocal's board of directors declared a quarterly dividend of US$0.20 per share to be paid on Nov. 10.
The statement did not mention the takeover battle between CNOOC and US oil major Chevron Corp, but it did say that the dividend will "not be paid if Unocal has been acquired by another company before the record date for the dividend."
A Unocal spokesman refused to comment on whether the board was even discussing the rival bids from CNOOC and Chevron.
But Fadel Gheit, an oil analyst with Oppenheimer and Co, said he had received e-mail notification from the El Segundo company that the takeover battle was up for discussion.
"They are negotiating and will negotiate for as long as it takes. They are obligated by their fiduciary duty to shareholders to consider the CNOOC bid," he told reporters, playing down the prospect of a decision on Thursday.
Unocal's shareholders are set to vote Aug. 10 on whether to accept the US$18.5 billion cash bid from CNOOC, or a stock-and-cash offer from Chevron that is worth about US$1.5 billion less.
The Unocal board had already accepted the Chevron offer before the Chinese state firm entered the fray in late June, in the process setting off a political storm among US lawmakers.
With many members of Congress demanding that the White House block the Chinese bid on national security grounds, the opinion poll published by the Wall Street Journal and NBC News found overwhelming public antipathy to CNOOC.
The poll suggested that 73 percent of Americans dislike the potential deal, which the Journal said would fuel "prospects that US lawmakers will seize on the issue as the takeover battle continues."
The Financial Times said yesterday that CNOOC could raise its cash offer from US$67 a share to US$69, taking the total bid price to US$19 billion.
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