Moving up: Jamie H. Collier has taken over the leadership reins at The Baton Rouge Regional Eye Bank. Collier appointment as executive director was effective May 13. She previously served as the BRREB’s technical director. Collier succeeds Ginger Miller, who is retiring after 30 years. Miller will remain as a consultant for the BRREB. Collier, a New Orleans native, has a master’s degree in anthropology from LSU and bachelor’s degree in biological science from Northwestern State University. The Baton Rouge Regional Eye Bank works with donors to provide high quality tissue for transplant surgery. Collier began her career in eye banking in February 2005.
Taking over: Houston’s Westlake Chemical Corp. will buy Axiall Corp. for $33 a share in cash after increasing its previous offer by more than 40%. FuelFix.com reports the deal is worth roughly $2.3 billion or as much as $3.8 billion with the acquisition of debt. Westlake’s previous bid was $1.6 billion. Westlake President and CEO Albert Chao had long coveted the Atlanta-based petrochemical competitor. Earlier this year, he began a proxy battle to propose an entirely new slate of Axiall board members in a hostile takeover attempt. Instead, an acquisition was announced amicably today, exactly one week before the Axiall board vote. Earlier in the week, South Korea’s Lotte Chemical Corp. became another potential buyer of Axiall. Despite Lotte’s late intervention, Chao says he looks forward to working with Lotte on its current joint venture with Axiall called LACC, which is building an ethylene plant in Lake Charles near the Texas border.
Placing bets: Oil investors are buying contracts that will only pay out if crude rises well above $100 a barrel over the next four years—a clear sign some believe today’s bust is sowing the seeds of the next boom. Bloomberg reports the options deals, which brokers said bear the hallmarks of trades made by hedge funds, appear to be based on the belief that current low prices will generate a supply crunch as oil companies cut billions of dollars in spending on developing fields. Over the last month, investors have bought call options—giving the right to buy at a predetermined price and time—for late 2018, 2019 and 2020 at strike prices of $80, $100 and $110 a barrel, according to data from the New York Mercantile Exchange and the U.S. Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. Read the full story.
