El Paso Corp.’s top individual shareholder, Selim K. Zilkha, who engineered a failed takeover attempt of the board of directors last year, reportedly has sold his stock in the company.

Zilkha until recently owned 8.9 million shares, or 1.5% of the company. Last year he and Oscar Wyatt Jr. and a group of dissident shareholders launched a $5.9 million proxy fight over El Paso’s leadership, but ultimately failed to oust the board of directors (see Daily GPI, June 18, 2003). He told the Associated Press that he sold the last of his El Paso share’s last Monday.

“I no longer own any El Paso shares,” Zilkha said. He did not comment on El Paso’s decision to delay its fourth quarter earnings announcement, nor its announcement to revise downward its oil and gas reserves by 41%.

Wyatt apparently still owns most of the five million El Paso shares he obtained after his company, Coastal Corp., merged with El Paso in 2001. Asked if he had sold his stock, Wyatt’s spokeswoman Dorothy Beeler was quoted as saying, “he wishes he had. We all wish we had sold at $70. He’s not going to get out totally, because too many of his [Coastal] employees are attached to this company.”

In other news, Jeffrey B. Sherrick on Friday was named senior vice president, exploration and production services for El Paso Production and Non-regulated Operations. Sherrick, 49, will be responsible for reservoir engineering, business development, technology, land administration, procurement, and environmental, health and safety.

Sherrick was most recently CEO of Enron Global Exploration and Production Co., and before that, he held various positions with Enron Oil and Gas Co., including the position of senior vice president of Engineering, Business Development, and Planning.

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