Rice Brothers Vie For Control Of EQT

Rice brothers, Toby and Derek, reiterated their plan to turnaround EQT and realize the potential promised from the Rice Energy merger.

Emily

Patsy

HartEnergy.com

Tue, 02/05/2019 - 03:00 PM

The brothers behind Rice Energy agreed in 2017 to the roughly $8.2 billion merger with EQT, which was set to create the largest natural gas producer in the U.S. (Source: Hart Energy)

Rice brothers, Toby and Derek, are doubling down on their calls to transform EQT Corp. (NYSE: EQT) into the lowest-cost gas operator in the U.S. by taking control of the company and installing Toby as CEO.

The brothers hosted an investor call on Feb. 5 to lay out their turnaround plan for EQT to live up to the promise shareholders were made when the merger between EQT and Rice Energy closed a little over a year ago.

EQT management has said it’s likely they will try to buy back stocks soon as part of an effort to blunt the Rice brother’s return to the executive suite.

The Rice brothers have keenly watched the EQT merger, in part because their fortunes are tied to EQT’s performance. The 2017 merger included a payment of $1.3 billion in cash to the Rice brothers and $5.4 billion in EQT equity.

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