Chrysler Fully Repays Government Loans, Fiat Stake Increases To 46%

Chrysler Fully Repays Government Loans, Fiat Stake Increases To 46%



May 24, 2011

Chrysler said today it has fully repaid the U.S. and Canadian governments, more than six years earlier than it was required to, making final payments of $5.9 billion to the U.S. Treasury and $1.7 billion to the governments of Canada and Ontario.

"Less than two years ago, we made a commitment to repay the U.S. and Canadian taxpayers in full and today we made good on that promise," Chrysler and Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne said in a statement today.

Mr. Marchionne noted that Chrysler repaid its bailout loans faster than the last time the company got a bailout from the federal government back in the late 1970's when Lee Lacocca led the company.

As a result of the repayment, Fiat's stake in Chrysler will rise to 46%, putting the company close to its goal of 51% by the end of 2011. Once Chrysler develops a vehicle that gets 40 miles per gallon on a Fiat platform, a development expected in the fourth quarter, Fiat can increase its stake to 51%.

Chrysler paid more than $1.2 billion in interest on its debt in 2010, and is swapping out government debt with cheaper debt from institutional investors. The refinancing will not reduce the company's debt load, but will save the company more than $300 million a year in interest expenses.

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Commodity Corner: Oil Rises on Forecasts, Dollar

- Commodity Corner: Oil Rises on Forecasts, Dollar

Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Rigzone Staff
by Saaniya Bangee

Crude futures gained nearly 2 percent on a weaker dollar and bullish forecasts Tuesday.

Light, sweet crude settled at $99.59 a barrel, after reaching a high of $100.09 earlier in the trading session. The almost two dollar gain came as the euro recovered a two-month low against the dollar. The greenback slipped against the euro on better-than-expected German business sentiment. The ICE Dollar Index, which gauges the dollar against a basket of foreign currencies, decreased 0.4 percent Tuesday.

On Tuesday, Goldman Sachs increased its year-end target for Brent crude to $120 a barrel, saying it anticipates demand growth will sap global supply and overextend spare oil output capacity. It raised its 2012 forecasts to $140 per barrel from $120. Likewise, rival Morgan Stanley lifted its 2011 forecast to $120 a barrel, previously $100. Morgan Stanley forecasts 2012 Brent to be $130 a barrel from $105.

Meanwhile, natural gas for June delivery lost a penny to settle at $4.345 per thousand cubic feet Tuesday. The drop came on speculation that demand from power plants won't be able to exceed increasing inventories. Prices fluctuated between $4.27 and $4.40 per thousand cubic feet.

After trading between $2.92 and $3.03, June gasoline prices settled at $2.99 per gallon, up 5 cents from Monday.

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Tombstone Exploration Welcomes New Member to Board

- Tombstone Exploration Welcomes New Member to Board

Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Tombstone Exploration Corp.

Tombstone Exploration announced that Mr. Laird Cagan has been appointed to the TMBXF Board of Directors.

Mr. Cagan is Managing Director and co-founder of Cagan McAfee Capital Partners, LLC, ("CMCP"), a private investment firm and merchant bank, as well as its predecessor firm, Cagan Capital, LLC. In the '90's, Cagan Capital invested in and helped build 15 high tech companies with over $500 million of equity capital invested in those companies. Since 2000, CMCP has founded, funded and taken public 10 companies in a variety of industries including energy, alternative energy, healthcare, information technologies and environmental. CMCP portfolio companies have raised over $600 million of equity capital and over $2 billion of capital has been invested in those companies or their projects.

Mr. Cagan was the Founder/Chairman of Evolution Petroleum Corporation (EPM), which develops mature oil & gas fields with advanced technologies, and is a former founding director of AE BioFuels (AEBF) and Pacific Asia Petroleum (PAP). He is also a Registered Representative of Colorado Financial Services Corporation (Member FINRA/SIPC) and holds Series 7, 63 and 24 licenses. CMCP is not affiliated with CFSC.

Mr. Cagan previously worked for two of the largest investment banks in the world, Goldman, Sachs & Co. and Drexel Burnham Lambert. In all, he was involved in over 30 transactions valued at more than $15 billion. Mr. Cagan attended M.I.T. and received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in engineering and his MBA from Stanford University. He is also a graduate of the UCLA Director's Training Program.

Cagan stated, "Tombstone controls the mineral resources under a large acreage in an historically prolific mining area in Southern Arizona. Existing testing results show significant promise for a potentially large mineral resource. It is an exciting opportunity for me to be involved at this point in the development of this project. I see parallels with several of the companies I co-founded which developed into AMEX-listed companies. These companies had energy resources with significant initial potential and after accessing development capital, entered into development deals with a large strategic partner to build out the resource."

Alan Brown, President of TMBXF, stated, "We are extremely pleased to announce the appointment of Laird to our Board of Directors. His past experience will be an asset to our company and we look forward to working with him. Laird has had considerable success helping and advising previous firms that he was associated with in raising expansion capital. This experience will be of great value to TMBXF, as we move to the next stage."

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Ensco Declares Quarterly Dividend

- Ensco Declares Quarterly Dividend

Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Ensco plc

Ensco has declared a regular quarterly cash dividend of US $0.35 per Class A ordinary share payable on June 24, 2011 to holders of Ensco's American depositary shares (ADS) as of the June 13, 2011 record date.

As previously reported, Ensco and Pride International each will hold special shareholder meetings on May 31, 2011 to vote on the merger of their companies, creating the world's second largest mobile offshore drilling fleet. The Ensco and Pride joint proxy statement/prospectus has been distributed to shareholders of both companies and the Ensco and Pride boards of directors have recommended that shareholders vote in favor of the merger.

As disclosed previously, votes for Ensco's special shareholder meeting on May 31, 2011 must be received by today, May 24, 2011, for the ADS depositary to properly record votes.

In preparation for the special shareholder meetings, Ensco and Pride have satisfied antitrust and securities regulatory requirements and Ensco has successfully completed a $2.5 billion senior notes offering, the net proceeds of which will facilitate the Pride acquisition.

If approved by the shareholders of Ensco and Pride at their respective May 31, 2011 special meetings, the merger is expected to close on the same day, at which point, with exceptions for certain U.K. residents, Pride stockholders will have the right to receive 0.4778 newly-issued shares of Ensco plus $15.60 in cash for each share of Pride common stock per the terms of the merger agreement.

Assuming the merger closes as planned on May 31, 2011, the US $0.35 regular quarterly cash dividend noted above also will be paid on the Ensco shares issued to the former Pride stockholders to holders of Ensco's American depositary shares (ADS) as of the June 13, 2011 record date.

At the Annual General Meeting of Shareholders held today, the vote of a sufficient number of shares were cast to approve all proposals as recommended by the Board of Directors, including the non-binding advisory votes by a majority of shares to approve the compensation of our named executive officers and to hold non-binding advisory shareholder votes on the compensation of our named executive officers every year.

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