By Kevin McCauley
China National Offshore Oil Corp., which is offering $15B for Canada’s Nexen Inc. energy giant, has lined up Davis Polk & Wardell to work the Washington beat.
DP&W’s John Reynolds, the firm’s expert on the workings of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., is handling the effort. Nexen’s Gulf of Mexico assets represent about 10 percent of its overall business.
The Financial Times reported Sept. 11 that the Nexen deal represents a “test case” to determine where Cfius, which rules on foreign takeover on strategic American assets, stands on a big Chinese takeover of U.S. natural resources.
Cifus began a review of CNOOC’s proposed $18.5B bid for U.S.-based Unocal in 2005, but didn’t make a ruling after Chevron topped the Chinese bid.
The Committee, which is chaired by the Treasury Dept., expects to rule on the Nexen deal shortly after the presidential election.
That deadline could be pushed back with the election of Mitt Romney, who has advocated a hard line against the Chinese.
The government of the People’s Republic of China owns a 64 percent stake of CNOOC.
Hill+Knowlton Strategies and its sister firm Wexler & Walker Public Policy Assocs. are also handling CNOOC’s bid for Nexen. |