Daniel W

National Fuel Gas Heating Up

I'd be very interested to see your work on this one but am hesitant about leaving email details in a public forum. I just started a blog though--which is rarely visited! Could you post it there in the comments section on one of my NFG posts? The address is easy, just type my name then add .blogspot.com (my creativity knows bounds).

We do agree on much about NFG. While you can definitely tell that management is getting annoyed with the correspondence--a telling point in my opinion--the recent letter by New Mountain shows that their patience is wearing thin too.

One of the recommendations, to drop the poison pill, is important because New Mountain is basically limited from buying more--given their ownership of close to 10% of the shares (the point at which the "pill" is triggered).

From recent filings it appears that NFG has sold off some of their position, though they still own roughly 9% of the company. I'm looking forward to the next quarterly disclosure reports to see if Citadel increased their stake substantially again--and whether or not all of the recent drama has brought in any activist funds with significant shareholdings.