Texas Oil Dynasty Targets Payout With $8 Billion Mitsubishi Deal
(Bloomberg) -- Albert and Gordon Huddleston are on the cusp of cementing their place in a gilded lineage of Texas oil tycoons who amassed fortunes drilling across the world.
The father and son — part of the H.L. Hunt family — are in advanced talks to sell the assets of Aethon Energy Management to Mitsubishi Corp. for nearly $8 billion, people familiar with the matter say.
The figure suggests that Gordon, the shale drilling firm’s president and sole owner, would reap a big windfall should the deal go through. Albert, who founded Aethon, remains its chief executive officer.
The size of the potential payout will depend on factors including Aethon’s debt and the family’s interests in its funds — and whether the talks result in a deal. But the negotiations still mark a milestone for the duo and the generations of swaggering oil men who came before them.
The Huddlestons declined to comment.
The website of Dallas-based Aethon notes that Gordon, 42, is “a fourth-generation investor and developer of energy resources.” Behind those words lies a story that spans more than a century and begins with his great grandfather, Haroldson Lafayette Hunt.
Born in Illinois in 1889, Hunt left home at a young age and started trading cotton in Arkansas in his early 20s. Known as “Arkansas Slim” and prone to taking big bets both in business and at the poker table, Hunt eventually turned from cotton to oil.
In 1930 he bought a slice of land in East Texas at a bargain price, promising the seller a share of future profits. Within two years it had hundreds of producing wells, becoming the basis for a growing family empire. In 1948, Life Magazine called him potentially the richest man in the US.
The family business was carried on by several of Hunt’s 15 children, including Nelson Bunker Hunt. He helped oversee expansions into Libya, Mexico and the Philippines and amassed a range of other assets including cattle ranches, skyscrapers and thoroughbreds, according to his 2014 obituary in the New York Times.
In the 1970s, Bunker and his brothers Herbert and Lamar tried to corner the global silver market by corralling a large chunk of the world’s deliverable supply of the metal. The bet backfired spectacularly, sent shock waves through the financial world and forced the brothers to place many family holdings into bankruptcy.
But the family rebounded, and many of H.L. Hunt’s descendants have gone on to be influential figures in places like Dallas, Chicago and Kansas City. A group of them owns the Kansas City Chiefs.
Albert, who married Nelson’s daughter Mary, worked at two energy companies before setting up Aethon as a private investment firm in 1990, with a focus on oil and gas assets in North America. Gordon worked a stint in finance before joining the business in 2006, according to his company profile.
Gordon, the company’s public face, has largely overseen Aethon’s expansion into the Haynesville shale basin, which stretches from East Texas to northern Louisiana.
Albert, 72, has carved out a side business as a noted golf course developer in the Dallas area. After redeveloping an old course in Carrollton, Texas about eight years ago, he renamed the club “Maridoe” as a tribute to his wife’s childhood nickname.
Aethon is among the most active drillers in the Haynesville basin, and it’s close to several LNG export terminals along the Gulf Coast. The firm and its affiliates have deployed more than $9 billion since its inception.
If the father and son agree to a deal with Mitsubishi, it would be the culmination of years spent looking for ways to monetize Aethon. Bloomberg reported in 2022 that Aethon was considering an initial public offering that could have valued the business at more than $10 billion. And this year, Abu Dhabi’s state oil firm considered a bid for Aethon’s natural gas assets, according to people familiar with the matter.
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