Hess Corporation HES
The three reasons
- 1
Hess intrinsic value is $96-$128/share vs. discounted current price - ~$50bn TEV trapped in opaque conglomerate
- 2
Hess underperformed Revised Proxy Peers by (460)% over CEO John Hess's 17-year tenure
- 3
Board lacks independence and accountability - lead 'independent' director is joint-executor of the Hess family estate
Primary demands
- Elect Elliott's five independent director nominees (Chase, Golub, Kurz, McManus, Smith) at the 2013 Annual Meeting
- Break up Hess into a focused 'Hess Resource Co.' (Bakken/Eagle Ford/Utica unconventional) and 'Hess International' (long-life conventional assets)
- Monetize Bakken midstream infrastructure via MLP drop-down
- Divest downstream / retail / marketing businesses
- Declassify (de-stagger) the board and end entrenched governance practices
- Restore credible pay-for-performance and end the 'perpetual restructuring' narrative
KPIs cited
Pattern membership
Where this document fits across the library's 12 rhetorical / structural patterns.
Notable slides (8)
Notes
Classic Elliott proxy-fight deck against Hess Corp ahead of the 2013 annual meeting. Strong rhetorical architecture: opens with intrinsic-value headline ($128/share), pivots to 17-year underperformance (-460%), then a 'perpetual restructuring' timeline weaponizing John Hess's own quotes from 1999-2013 alongside a Goldman Sachs zinger ('Will perpetual restructuring mode ever end?'). Page 8 'False Excuses' three-column layout (Idea / Hess Excuse / Reality) is a textbook rebuttal slide. Page 11 directly juxtaposes management's 'Rubber Stamp' nominee quote with Elliott's 'truly independent' nominees. Sum-of-parts on page 13 with photos per segment + analyst NAV comparisons. Co-branded with Hess logo (subverts target's identity). Companion website: www.ReassessHess.com. Campaign outcome (known historically): partial win - settled May 2013, Elliott got 3 of 5 nominees on board, Hess agreed to spin/sell downstream and split Chairman/CEO roles. Filed under proxy_fight phase given imminent 2013 annual meeting context.