Pickens on the Prowl

Once again it is time to play a favorite guessing game of corporate America: What is T. Boone Pickens Jr. really up to? In the latest of a series of raids on other oil companies, Pickens, chairman of Mesa Petroleum in Amarillo, Texas, and two partners last week announced an offer to buy 20.6% of Phillips Petroleum of Bartlesville, Okla., for $60 a share, or a total of $900 million. The Pickens group has already quietly bought shares amounting to 5.7% of Phillips. The group said the move was "a step in obtaining control of Phillips."

Some industry experts, however, speculated that Pickens was actually hoping Phillips would recruit a so-called white knight, perhaps Shell Oil or Atlantic Richfield, to take over the Oklahoma company. He would then sell his shares to the acquiring company at a premium. That happened last year when Chevron bought Gulf, after Pickens had made an unwelcome takeover bid. He and his partners made more than $400 million on that deal.

Phillips is expected to fight the assault with all the tricks of the takeover trade. Late in the week, both Phillips and Pickens went into court to block each other's moves. Stay tuned.