Milton Financials: EXCO’s CEO aiming to by company for $4.4 billion.

Nov. 2, 2010 - PRLog -- Milton Financials has learned from reports that the Chief Executive Officer of EXCO Recourses, Douglas Miller has teamed up with a number of investors, including oilman T. Boone Pickens, to bid for the gas-focused exploration firm for around $4.36 billion, believing that natural gas prices will recover in the not too distant future.

Natural gas prices, which are down by more than 20% year to date, recently hit a 13-month low, but there has been an increase in interest in underground shale formations which may hold sufficient reserves to meet U.S. demand for the next decade.

The natural gas sector has seen a host of new investments by energy firms recently including from China and India and prices for natural gas are expected to rise by more than 20% by early 2011, Milton Financials research indicated.

Miller currently holds a 2.15 % stake in the company, and has put in an offer to acquire the remaining shares at $20.50 each, equivalent to a premium of 38% on the company’s 29th October close. Miller was in charge when EXCO went private in 2003 at $18 per share. The firm went public in 2006.

Milton Financials has learned that Miller, in a recent letter to the company said that oilman and natural gas advocate Pickens, Oaktree Capital Management LP, the firm’s largest stockholder, and Ares Management LLC have all indicated interest in backing the deal.


"Boone is limited in what he can say at this time," a spokesman for Pickens said in a statement. "He has agreed to participate with Doug Miller in an offer to acquire EXCO,” adding that more details would be released later.

Currently Pickens holds 5% of the firm, Oaktree Capital 16.4% and Ares Management 6.06%.

Miller has retained JPMorgan Securities LLC and Goldman Sachs & Co. as financial advisers on the deal Milton Financials was told.

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