Who Wants Exxon?

U.S. oil giant Exxon-Mobil has dismissed a proposed bid to buy it from a little known Chinese firm for $450 billion. Texas-based Exxon is the world's biggest publicly-traded oil company.

Last week Exxon posted a quarterly profit of $9.9bn, the largest in U.S. corporate history, on the back of record oil and gas prices.

King Win Laurel has filed papers with the Securities and Exchange Commission offering to buy the firm in a dollars and yuan deal worth $70 a share.

Exxon said it did not believe King was "financially capable" of such an offer.

King Win Laurel, which said it was incorporated in New Zealand on 21 October, said the offer was subject to financing and included incentives for shareholders if the price of oil kept on rising.

"We do not believe that King Win Laurel Limited is financially capable of making such a tender offer," Exxon spokesman Dave Gardner said in a statement.

The booming Chinese economy is in need of increasing oil supplies, and earlier this year its oil producer CNOOC withdrew an $18.5bn bid for U.S. firm Unocal, after American political opposition.

"It is not out of the realm of possibility that the Chinese government could fund a bid for Exxon, so we can't ignore it entirely, even though that's my initial inclination," said debt analyst Jon Cartwright of BOSC.

From BBC News, October 31, 2005.