T. Boone died
- Thread starter Henry Kendall
- Start date
You only saw what was left. Every employee at Cities and Phillips was aware of this argument. Maybe one in 10,000 agreed with it.
The only argument is why the management of Cities did what they did with the company. The actual numbers were what they were. I never thought Oxy would cover the deficiencies created by Cities...or anyone else for that matter.
Good guy, bad guy, corporate raider, philanthropist or all of the above. Five minutes into the first Q, it will just be football. Thank goodness!
I still don't think TBoone could have known about those deficiencies. He didn't target Cities because of their retirement accounts.
Agree. To my knowledge no one but the upper management of Cities knew about those deficiencies. I do wonder if Gulf caught wind of them though and was the reason behind them backing out of the purchase. I suppose there's always the possibility of someone on the inside of Cities leaking the information but I have my doubts. I got the distinct feeling during my time there that even Oxy wasn't aware of the extent of the problem until after the audit.
That's fair, but as I said, I think Cities could have dealt with the problem if they hadn't had to deal with T Boone at the same time. (Probably by selling assets), but the company would have remained. More importantly they would have remained in Tulsa.
The valuation issue wouldn't have been made public with the Gulf pullout if Cities never had to propose to merge with Gulf (to ward off Boone) in the first place.
I wonder if Boone Pickens had chosen to donate his millions of dollars to TU's football program, would you all be saying the same thing about him. Just sayin.
If he ruined my community's investment, sure I would. The value of the companies he helped ruin to Tulsa / Bville is much greater than the value that he gave to OSU.
Have to disagree. My father was a Phillips employee. Bartlesville rallied like they never had before when Carl Icahn and T Boone came calling.
I wish I still had one of those t-shirts that had a T-bone steak with a ghostbusters circle and line through it.
cons:
taking greenmail
pros:
forcing corporations to make their executives largely be paid with stock compensation, so they had skin in the game (most execs had very little back then)
insisting corporations cut the fat, return cash to shareholders, and have some accountability
would we be headed toward complete American energy independence without him? he was one of the biggest drivers
I like the fact he came from an underdog school, and hated losing and chose to do something about it. We need a few with that attitude at TU (employees and donors)
I wish I still had one of those t-shirts that had a T-bone steak with a ghostbusters circle and line through it.
cons:
taking greenmail
pros:
forcing corporations to make their executives largely be paid with stock compensation, so they had skin in the game (most execs had very little back then)
insisting corporations cut the fat, return cash to shareholders, and have some accountability
would we be headed toward complete American energy independence without him? he was one of the biggest drivers
I like the fact he came from an underdog school, and hated losing and chose to do something about it. We need a few with that attitude at TU (employees and donors)
American energy independence has nothing to do with him. It has to do with technology. Technology that would have been created with or without him. We knew about fracking and downhole drilling motors (used to make directional / horizontal wells) before he held any companies hostage.
Man... We really need to get to kickoff tomorrow...
Yes. That was and is a movement that would have happened with or without him. If he was one of the engineers who came up with the concept of fracking and the like, then you might have a point, but he wasn't.
They could have but we saw nothing to indicate that Cities had done anything to even address the problem up to the point of the Oxy acquisition. If anything, they were in a full blown cover up.
Pickens was on the forefront of renewable energy. I can't recall a bigger proponent of wind power in Texas more than a decade ago.
Fair.... maybe they would have imploded they may not have. It's like they were holding a live grenade and he pulled the pin.
I can be mad at them for holding the grenade.... but he still pulled the pin.
Or maybe Schrodinger's cat would be a better analogy. They were in a box where they were both alive and dead.... and he was the one who looked in the box which made sure they were dead. If he'd kept to himself, they might have lived.
I would argue it's more like they were putting grenades in a hidden box and kept adding grenades to the same. If they had stopped adding to the problem or at any point acknowledge the issue and came up with a plan to fix the same then I would be more accepting of your premise that they might have fixed it on their own. They in fact showed the opposite inclination. It was only a matter of time until those grenades exploded or someone discovered the contents of that hidden box. That liability was certainly conveniently misreported on their financials. Really doesn't matter at this point. It is what it is.
That's was his only salvation and penance imo, at least on a business level.
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Isn't this some of the same kind of accounting Arthur Andersen was doing with Enron?
You mean Enron who is now EOG (Enron Oil & Gas) and who's stock more than doubled since that scandal? It's not impossible for these companies to survive these problems, which is what I was saying about Cities. T. Boone is the reason they didn't have a real chance to develop a lasting presence in Tulsa.
I don't know anything about all the takeovers and mergers in the oil and gas field around here. I didn't come to Tulsa until 1992. I think the only one after that was the Conoco merger with Phillips. I know a lot of jobs in Bartlesville were lost during that merger but my guess is a bunch were saved as well.
I only make the Enron comparison because didn't they also list the retirement benefits its employees had earned as assets. It's been 18-19 years so I am trying to recall that entire scandal. Plus they were commoditizing things that didn't really exist. The Enron thing led to the whole Williams fall out and it divesting a bunch of the energy stuff it was doing. Ultimately Williams recovered (and there was a time when you could buy Williams stock for like $1....damn). I had a friend who worked for Arthur Andersen around that time in Tampa and he couldn't get out fast enough.
Sort of. AA doesn't actually do any accounting. They audit the accounting reports provided by their clients. So Enron (or Cities) provides their auditors financial statements prepared in house. AA then audits those statements to insure their accuracy. There are generally grey areas and those are discussed by the partner in charge of the audit and the management of the company. Those areas are resolved and the final audited financials released. I will say that well hidden intentional misrepresentations can be very difficult to discover if the company knows how to hide the same. I will also say that the larger the client the more likely the public accounting firm will go along with their desires when it comes to the reporting of those grey areas.
I worked for Arthur Andersen btw.
Thanks for the clarification. That makes sense.Sort of. AA doesn't actually do any accounting. They audit the accounting reports provided by their clients. So Enron (or Cities) provides their auditors financial statements prepared in house. AA then audits those statements to insure their accuracy. There are generally grey areas and those are discussed by the partner in charge of the audit and the management of the company. Those areas are resolved and the final audited financials released. I will say that well hidden intentional misrepresentations can be very difficult to discover if the company knows how to hide the same. I will also say that the larger the client the more likely the public accounting firm will go along with their desires when it comes to the reporting of those grey areas.
I worked for Arthur Andersen btw.
It's more likely that Coach Gundy is going to tell them not to even think about losing this game. Make it a tribute to Mr. Pickens. Go out and kick some Hurricane butt for the old man! That type of thing.
No way they're going to be complacent for the game following his death. No looking past TU towards Texas, now. Sorry about that.
The Enron deal caused investigations of the Williams trading floor, the largest at the time W of the Mississippi and resulted in heavy fines and heavy FERC regulations.
I know the Wiltel stock went to $1 and I lost a bunch of $$ on it as it folded.
Funny thing is, it folded for the wrong reasons. Some jacka$$ analyst said there was an internet bandwidth glut and what was available would never be used then, Communication companies stock crashed.
Would like to see that guy now...
A handful of people at AA who weren't even the top directors or officers of the company took down the world's third or fourth largest accounting firm. Pretty crazy if you think about it. AA bought a small college outside of Chicago and used it as their world wide training center. The place served some of the best food I've ever eaten, had a dance club, movie theater, among other amenities.
It's weird how cyclical all of these issues are. Right now I have two good friends I went to HS with at BA. Both ended up at TU with me. One is now auditing oil companies, much in the way Lawpoke is talking about. Another was recently appointed by Trump (bleh) as a policy advisor for FERC. TU really continues to put kids in positions to succeed in and around the energy industry.
Judging by the alumni magazine and people I’ve met over the years at GHC dinners, TU’s political science department has put people in and around the Oval Office many many times including this administration.
Yeah, Notre Dame tried the same thing. Didn’t work too well.
We apparently honor corrupt unethical business people now.
Dont forget his attempt to drain Amarillos ogallala water supply to feed fort worth..
I Really HATE oSu...
Wow.. thats a low ceiling compared to some of the other insults ive hurled at them..
I think it was timing. Your not wrong, TBP was a bad dude that ruined a lot of lives. I certainly don’t believe it’s a bad thing that he’s out of the doing damage business. Of course one day we’re all judged by our maker, an I can’t imagine his attempts to right all of his wrongs in the end would make amends, but I’m not the one passing judgment.
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