After a bitter two days, Dave Lesar drove out to Martin Craighead’s headquarters Sunday, taking the final play in a tense merger negotiation straight to his counterpart.
It was cold and windy in Houston as the two chief executive officers entered the last stages of a bid that had almost led to a fight for board nominations. Lesar, 61, the 14-year leader of Halliburton Inc, and Craighead, 54, a Baker Hughes veteran in his first year at the helm, sat down over a coke and a coffee to seal the $35 billion deal, the two men said yesterday.
For Lesar, the meeting culminated a campaign that began almost a decade earlier when executives from the companies first broached a possible merger. A month ago, he took advantage of a 32% drop in Baker Hughes stock since July in the wake of falling oil prices.
