Forget it: What was shaping up to be the first big merger battle of 2016 has ended, at least for now, The New York Times reports. Honeywell International, which has a facility in Baton Rouge, says it is withdrawing its $90 billion takeover bid for United Technologies after its rival steadfastly argued that a union of the two would be blocked by government regulators. In a statement, Honeywell argued again that a merger would have posed little antitrust risk. Several important customers of the two companies—including Airbus and Boeing—have issued statements expressing varying levels of opposition to a prospective deal. However, Honeywell says it will not try to negotiate with an unwilling partner. Read the full story.
Lifeline: Wall Street is trying to bail out the shale oil industry again, FuelFix.com reports. Energy executives at last week’s IHS Energy CERAWeek conference in downtown Houston worried that banks and the junk-bond market will stay tightfisted for a while even after oil prices recover, wary of an oil-production burst after getting burned by the oil-market crash. But equity investors, less risk-averse than lenders, have poured $7.7 billion into 12 U.S. oil companies in a series of stock sales in recent weeks, egged on by signals that crude prices have bottomed. It’s shaping up to be a replay of the $13 billion equity infusion in the first half of 2015, when cash-strapped drillers sought to ease financial pressure amid anemic oil prices. Read the full story.
Not in the cards: OPEC is very unlikely to cut output at its next meeting in June, even if prices remain extremely low, Reuters reports. According to OPEC sources and delegates, OPEC countries such as Saudi Arabia want to test Russia’s commitment to freezing output before taking any further steps to stabilize prices. More than 18 months after oil prices began a steep slide due to excess supply, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Venezuela and non-OPEC Russia agreed last month to freeze output at January levels in the first global oil pact in 15 years. Saudi Arabian Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi said last week a supply cut was not on the cards, though he added that the production freeze was only the first step to balance the market after prices fell to their lowest since 2003. Read the full story.
