Thursday, April 03, 2008

Patriot Coal What’s The Plan?

Patriot Coal (PCX) announced an agreement to acquire Magnum Coal. The announcement was strong enough to drive a one day gain of approximately 20%. On the surface it seems like a fine deal with many synergistic effects, no job losses, larger customer base, better transportation solutions, expanded product lines and every other business issue you can imagine.

So why wasn’t this done sooner. It seems it’s better than sliced bread. I always have problems with merger announcements that wax eloquently over all the benefits and then do not even provide any estimate about future earnings, accretive issues (like will it be accretive).

Sure the strategic value may be superb but Patriot Coal is losing money at the present. That’s fundamental. What will change that and when?