Halliburton units file for bankruptcy

Halliburton Co. said Tuesday its Kellogg Brown & Root and DII Industries units filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in a Pittsburgh court to resolve asbestos claims against the company.
Its energy services group, and Kellogg Brown & Root's government services unit, which is providing support services to the U.S. military in Iraq, are not included in the bankruptcy filings, the company said.

Those units in the pre-packaged bankruptcy filings will continue normal operations while in Chapter 11.

The bankruptcies have been expected for a year as Halliburton negotiated details of a plan to settle hundreds of thousands of asbestos injury claims.

The bulk of the claims came from employees who worked on industrial furnaces made by DII prior to Halliburton's purchase of the company in the late 1990s, when U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney was chief executive of Halliburton.

As part of the plan, over 400,000 claimants agreed cash required to pay them would not exceed $2.78 billion. Halliburton will take a $1 billion pretax charge in the fourth quarter for the settlement.

money.cnn.com...


This is really a story of quid pro quo revolving around the Bush crime family. The DII mentioned above is Dresser Industries International. That Hitler era company has had very long time ties to the Bush family.
Everyone in the known financial world wondered why Halliburton Ceo richard Cheney would but that company, with several $Billion$ worthy of employee asbestos liability pending against them. The company was not a logical buy, made even less so with the above litigation hanging over it. But, George H. W. Bush worked there and called Dresser's former president ''a mentor second only to my father." Even named Neil after him.

read more here:
206.14.209.44...

Yes, this is VERY good news for the shareholders. This is a reorganization of the KBR/DII Engineering and Construction side of Halliburton Corporation now that the class action has been resolved and ended.

There was unanimous acceptance of the agreement on the class action suit (which actually goes back to a subsidiary that Dresser owned...aaaaa, can't remember the name of the smaller company right now).

Another good reason to HOLD! Stock closed at over $25 yesterday!

The rest of your allegations stand as hog-wash until you're ready to provide some source to back them (I am referring to the Bush/Dresser/Cheney/Halliburton connections.) You provided a link to a July 17, 2002 article back when the democrats were trying to rustle up trouble in an SEC audit that NO WHERE. Was it your intention to imply that link some how backed your unsubstantiated claims concerning Bush/Dresser/Cheney?

And you know business folks as your regular circle of friends, so I'll respect your thoughts on the following.
Please let me know your perspective on how or why a CEO looks at a company that has horrible market share and upwards of $4 Billion in employee claims againsts it , does a cost benefit analysis, and deems that a buy?

We also need to get on the same page: Some of the most insideous actions taken by corporations have been STELLAR for share holders. Which one are we going to discuss? As for your favorite 'defend at all costs Co.', their S&P rating is "bbb", close to the lowest they give. Also, I think the stock fell 75% between the 1998 Dresser purchase and when he left to be President er, VP.

If it's moral, they've been immoral. The Dresser deal looks a little better then, because it allowed KBR to sell $24M to Saddam Hussein in oil field supllies through it's foreign registry, thus circumventing the prohibition of US firms dealing with Mr.Bloody Despot. Then did $15M the next year, as well as being a big supplier to Burma - a bloody dictatorship that makes Saddam look like a puss.
But still, the CBA doesn't match when the cost has a potential of $4B. Unless, of course, litigation limiting legislation on Asbestos was being moved through a GOP top heavy Congress, hmm?

Wholeheartedly agree with Bout here.

"Some of the most insideous actions taken by corporations have been STELLAR for share holders."

I watch Cavuto or the whole Cashin' In Fox Stox block and just get sick when they get excited over rampant downsizing and the ilk as a "buy" ...or good for anyone but a select few.

And they continue to tie your 401k performance to who is President (Republicans good / Dems bad) DESPITE all evidence to the contrary.

All I need is one more 90's and I'd retire. Or one more 2001 to 2003 and I'll be on welfare.

I do not work for myself now. But I did for awhile in the 1990s. Just wanted to clear that up.

I think the Dresser acquisition was a great big flaming black mark against the CEO period for Cheney. I'll go further to say that I believe you have given him far more credit (discredit?) than he deserves concerning the whole transaction. I'm not trying to defend him, I just don't think any analysis was done by him at all prior to striking the deal to merge. Furthermore, once you accept he didn't do a damned thing to figure out whether this was going to be "good" that means one of two things happened:

1. The people under him didn't do THEIR job either.
2. OR, they did and were told the deal was already made, forget what you learned and shut up.

I am only discussing one issue in this thread...that the settlement and reorganization is going to be good for Halliburton and it's stockholders. I'm not sure what you're discussing, but that's what I'm discussing. When I reread your originating topic I find it hard to call that off-topic.

Concerning your statement that companies do bad things to boost stock...yep, they damned sure do. But that is not what we're talking about here. How can you place that statement in a discussion about this Chapter 11? What has happened here is that a bad purchase was made, it brought with it a liability, and the purchasing company is paying that liability even though they had nothing to do with the asbestos that hurt these folks. Sounds stand-up to me...so what's your point with this comment?

You are correct on the stock falling after the Dresser purchase...but it wasn't just from the Dresser purchase. It fell at the same time as the rest of the stock market, and then has struggled to regain value because of the litigation.

Your other comments concerning the business that the Dresser acquisition brought due to business they could perform in countries Halliburton couldn't makes me think Cheney or somebody actually DID analyze something! That's a good business decision right there. It is not immoral...it is not inhumane...and to even insinuate that is to dance off into the poppie of hyperbole. That's just good business. And slick way to pull it off.

Once again I'll point out that from the time Cheney decided to run on the ticket, there have been insinuations, inuendo, and investigations in attempts by his adversaries to find something dirty in "Cheney's former company"...so far not a damned thing will stick. That speaks a lot.

I won't defend Halliburton at ANY COST, but I will defend it against falsehoods. It's a good company. I'm starting to feel that your repeated comments against are either fueled by a severe bi-partisan hatred OR you are flat out anti-capitalist, because some of these last statements you made sure sound that way.

HANG ON EVERYBODY! WE'RE GOING UP!!!!!

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WOOHOO!

Originally posted by Valhall
OR you are flat out anti-capitalist

Ouch!! That's like talking about my Mama!

I just have been a small business owner for the last decade, and I hate cronyism ....the big corporate welfare type, while diddly, and I hate the small stuff like " this is my cousin's firm, so use them".