Halliburton shares sink on asbestos verdict
Dallas Business Journal
Shares of Halliburton Co. (NYSE: HAL) lost nearly half their value after the company disclosed Friday it lost yet another court battle over asbestos claims.
Halliburton stock plunged 47 percent by late afternoon to a new 52-week low of $11, its lowest level in nine years. Its previous 52-week low was $19.35 a share reached Sept. 26. The stock ended Friday at $12, down $8.85 or 42 percent from Thursday's close.
The oil services giant said in a filing Friday with the Securities and Exchange Commission that a Baltimore jury on Wednesday ordered its Dresser Industries unit to pay $30 million to plaintiffs claiming health problems from asbestos exposure.
The verdict brings recent asbestos liability awards against the company, which was run by Vice President Dick Cheney until August 2000, to more than $150 million.
The month-long trial centered on allegations that products containing asbestos made by the Harbison-Walker company caused lung cancer in five people, three of whom died, according to a Reuters report. Harbison-Walker was spun off by Halliburton's Dresser Industries unit in 1992.
Halliburton said it plans to challenge the verdict in post-trail motions and to appeal the verdict aggressively if those motions are not successful.
Earlier this week Halliburton said a court in Orange recently entered judgments on jury awards totaling $100.7 million against Dresser Industries in two separate asbestos liability cases. Halliburton also recently said a Mississippi jury awarded $21.25 million in asbestos damages against Dresser Industries.
In a Nov. 8 SEC filing, Halliburton said about 340,000 asbestos claims had been filed against the company and its subsidiaries since 1976, of which 194,000 had been resolved, leaving 146,000 open claims.
It said the cases resolved through settlements and court proceedings had cost a total of $143 million, of which it expects to recover all but $38 million from its insurers.
"We believe that open asbestos claims will be resolved without a material adverse effect on our financial position or the results of operations,'' the company said in its filing.
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