Comment by usefulcat
7 hours ago
> $140 billion if you include total financial cost to BP.
That's more than their current market cap ($127B), and the stock price right now is not that far from where it was just before the spill ($49 now, around $59 just prior to the spill).
I'm just curious how that was accomplished, given that it would not have been a great time for them to be borrowing or issuing new shares, for obvious reasons. Maybe if it was spread out over like 10 years it could be more doable, but still that seems like a lot.
Essentially how most businesses (big and small) handle this situation. Multi pronged approach.
Sold a bunch of assets to raise funds (about 38b apparently), cut the dividend, borrowed the remaining (you'd think after such an event it's 'hard' to raise capital but in reality BP has a great financial record and there's a chance they had prior agreements in place) and then spread cost out over ~10 years.
The stock price fell by 50ish percent, and they've spent 16 years recovering.
Yet, our ecosystem likely never will. I wonder which is more important to not let fail.
That fuel paid for people to get to work, it paid for people to get food to them, it paid for ambulances to get to hospitals. It was also the gaskets that let your plumbing and toilet work, the covering on the electrical wires in your home, and the sanitary wrapper over the medical equipment that saved numerous lives today.
Humans may all die, but the planet was here before we were, and will continue to be here long after we're gone. We should be better stewards, sure.
BP share price was over $100 the month before the disaster. They sold $45B in global assets and subsidiaries (including most of their refinery business and land holding 6 billion barrels of proven reserves) and cut their dividend to fund the damages and fines.
> BP share price was over $100 the month before the disaster
If you checked the share price via Google Finance, it's off by 2x. The share price on April 19, 2010 (a day before the disaster) was $59.48, not >$100. Google Finance is erroneously reporting the price.
Is it close or adjusted close?