Corporate Raider Says Hess Corp. Should Spin Off Shale Assets - Hess Says He's Wrong

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From Bloomberg (read the whole article here):
Hess Corp. (HES), the New York-based oil company, should conduct a full strategic review, including a potential spinoff of U.S. shale assets and sale of other businesses, Paul Singer’s Elliott Management Corp. said.
The activist investor sent a letter to Hess shareholders today urging them to vote for five new board members after a “history of unrelenting underperformance.” Elliott’s funds control $21.5 billion in assets and its 4 percent stake in Hess is the largest initial investment in its 35-year history, according to a statement today.
 Hess was pointed in their response.  From UPI (read the whole article here):
Hess Corp. won't pursue a sale of some of its assets in lucrative U.S. plays like Bakken shale despite calls from minority shareholders, CEO John Hess said. 
Hess, Hess Corp.'s chief executive officer, said keeping assets in the Bakken and Utica shale plays in the United States was the right strategy for the company.
Hess went further, as reported by NGI's Shale Daily (the whole article is here - subscription required):
"Some of [the] assets in our conventional portfolio generate the cash needed to fund the unconventional growth that we have in the Bakken and the Utica," Hess said. "Just having the Bakken and Utica stand alone, they would not be self-funding. They could not get access to the credit markets, and that's a real issue. So this balanced approach we definitely think is the right one that will create the most financial returns for our shareholders over the long term." 

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