Stocking stuffers: The Shaw Group says it has agreed to buy back 6,185,567 shares of its common stock—roughly 8.7% of all its common stock shares—at $24.25 per share, completing a $150 million stock repurchase plan. Shaw repurchased the shares via a modified Dutch auction, which allowed stockholders to set the number of shares and the sale prices within a certain range. Shaw set the range between $22.25 and $25.25. Stockholders offered to sell back slightly more than 6.6 million shares at or below $24.25, and Shaw says it is buying back about 93.5% of all shares offered.
Budget cuts possible: Louisiana’s income forecasting panel is planning to talk about whether the state’s revenue projections should be decreased, a move that could force a new round of budget cuts. The four-member Revenue Estimating Conference meets today to hear from two state economists about how income projections have fallen below their predictions. If the conference shrinks this year’s income forecast, that decision would drive a round of midyear cuts to close the gap, with only six months left in the fiscal year. If the conference reduces next year’s projections, lawmakers would cope with that change in the upcoming legislative session when they craft next year’s budget. All four members of the panel must agree before income projections can be changed.
A new lease on livelihoods: The federal government’s auction of offshore petroleum leases in the Gulf of Mexico today, the first since the Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill disaster in April 2010, drew $337.7 million in winning bids. Petroleum explorers bid on 191 tracts in the western gulf off the coast of Texas. With natural gas prices low and the United States sitting on vast shale deposits of gas, most of the bidding centered on deepwater sites targeted for oil exploration. Twenty companies offered 241 bids totaling $712.7 million. ConocoPhillips submitted the largest bid, agreeing to pay $103.2 million for a deepwater tract. The sale total was sharply higher than during the last western gulf sale in 2009, which drew only $115 million in high bids during a time of economic recession and increasing production of natural gas from shale. Depending upon water depth, the leases run from five to 10 years and revert back to the government if not developed. The federal government will receive an 18.75% royalty rate on all production.
