Merger activity increased last week with eight new deals announced and eight deals completed. There has also been a significant increase in SPAC business combinations in the past few weeks. There were nine SPAC business combinations announced last week.
Continental Resources (CLR) to be taken private
Oklahoma City-based Continental Resources is the largest oil producer in the Bakken Fields of North Dakota and Montana. In the past one year, the company has expanded into Wyoming and the Permian Basin of Texas and New Mexico. Billionaire fracking pioneer Harold Hamm founded Continental Resources in 1967 and took it public in 2007.
We first wrote about Continental Resource in our August 2020 Special Situations Newsletter, after witnessing significant insider buying across the energy industry. We wrote the following in the newsletter,
In this challenging environment it is hard to think about companies on the long side but the insider purchases by Harold Hamm in the energy production company Continental Resources last month stood out for its sheer size. The April swoon in energy prices, which at one point saw West Texas Intermediate (WTI) futures dip into negative territory for the first time ever, roiled energy markets worldwide. The global benchmark Brent oil futures did not come close to the decline WTI futures experienced but most energy companies were hit hard by the COVID-19 related collapse in demand and the sudden drop in oil futures.