2 - Q. What did you think? A. My reaction that day to Reg was one of excitement because he and I had chatted before about the attractiveness of natural resources business...conceptually. Was that sector of the world economy likely to grow faster than the world GNP? My reaction further was one of curiosity. I didn't know that much of Utah, nor of the businesses they're in. As I got to understand the numbers and the business, my enthusiasm for this possibility was enhanced. Q. Mining was new to you. What did you do? A. We looked at future earnings...dealing with an evaluation of (1) their reserves and what they're worth. (2) What are cost and price trends for those commodities going to be in the future? (3) What are the risks because the reserves were outside the U.S.? The figures said there was a very substantial concentration in Australia. Therefore, we tried to get a feel for Australia. There were limitations as to what we could do with Reg and myself being the only ones to know. Our feeling for those particular risks were on the plus side. On December 15, we discussed it with the Board. We didn't say "this is it." We asked for an agreement to pursue it so we could bring in task forces to evaluate it. Important task forces were: - Reserve clarification on each commodity - To look at operating efficiency - Cost and price trends - Earnings forecast - Tax review - Employee compensation and benefits - Legal - Treasury problems with loan covenants, etc. - Accounting policies In addition to these, and working with these, each company of course had to have an outside financial expert. Decided this would be a merger in the traditional sense. Each team headed by a GE expert in each area. Teams reported to Oscar Dunn and myself. Each reported its findings to the CPC, then boiled them down and went to the Board. Q. You had Morgan Stanley to look at the safety of the resources. But you already knew where the coal was. Why? A. On each task team there was a rather comprehensive review. They were really involved so that at the end they were very knowledgeable. It really was a