Sept 11 (Reuters) - T. Boone Pickens, a celebrated corporateraider and energy industry magnate who built an empire out of aninitial $2,500 investment, died on Wednesday at age 91.The Oklahoma-born tycoon, known for his folksy speech andruthless business acumen, died surrounded by his family andfriends, said longtime spokesman Jay Rosser.
"He was coming into the office every day until Monday," saidRosser. "He stayed active running his own portfolio."
Pickens closed his BP Capital energy hedge fund aftersuffering a stroke in late 2016 and due to the effects of a fallin mid-2017 that required hospitalization.
"Trading oil is not as intriguing to me as it once was,”Pickens wrote more than 18 months ago on his boonepickens.comwebsite to announce the closure of the fund. "It’s no secret thepast year has not been good to me, from a health perspective ora financial one."
Pickens was remembered for his contributions to advances inmedical research, athletic and educational initiatives, and foradvocating for increased domestic use of abundant natural gas.
"He generously shared his success with institutions andcommunities across Texas and Oklahoma," said former PresidentGeorge W. Bush.
Pickens' commitment to energy projects "will have a lastingimpact on the state of Texas, and the United States of America,"added Texas Governor Greg Abbott.
In late 2017, Pickens had put his 65,000-acre(26,000-hectare) Mesa Vista Ranch in the Texas Panhandle up forsale at a price of $250 million. In addition to a castle-likemain building, the ranch had its own airfield, art gallery, pub,chapel and two-story dog kennel.
Pickens ran energy firms, hedge funds and wind farms,offering forecasts on oil prices and in 2008, when his fortunewas estimated at $3 billion by Forbes magazine, announced thePickens Plan for an energy independent United States. Hepromoted the plan in television ads and interviews and testifiedabout it before Congress, bemoaning reliance on foreign oil andpushing the potential of wind energy.
Pickens had aspirations of creating the world's biggest windfarm in the Panhandle with the capability of powering 1.3millions homes at a cost of $10 billion. By 2010, however, hehad given up on a big-scale wind farm due to difficulties withfinancing and a lack of transmission lines.
Pickens had gained notoriety in the 1980s as a consummatedealmaker who launched audacious bids to take over giant oilcompanies including his former employer Phillips Petroleum Co,as well as Gulf Oil Corp and Unocal Corp with leveraged buyouts.
PROFITABLE FAILURES
He failed on all the big takeover bids but made millions ofdollars in the process. With Gulf Oil, his bid drove thenation's fifth largest oil company into a record $13.2 billionmerger with Chevron Corp and his bold moves landed himon the covers of magazines such as Forbes and Time.
"There is nothing better than being the underdog," he wrotein his 2008 book "The First Billion is the Hardest."
"The more people count me out, the more I count myself in."
Dubbed the "oracle of oil" in media outlets, Pickensportrayed himself as a tireless campaigner for shareholderrights and repeatedly argued that America's managers had becomemore concerned with the four P's - pay, perks, power andprestige - than with making money for the company's real owners.
Thomas Boone Pickens Jr. was born on May 22, 1928, inHoldenville, Oklahoma, and in the late 1930s moved with hisfamily to Texas.
Graduating with a geology degree from what later wouldbecome Oklahoma State University, Pickens worked for PhillipsPetroleum for about three years before borrowing $2,500 andgoing out on his own. He and two investors formed an oil and gasfirm called Petroleum Exploration Inc.
The firm would later became Mesa Petroleum, which at onetime, was one of the world's largest independent oil companies,with assets of more than $2 billion in 1980, according to theTexas State Historical Association.
In 1996, Pickens, announced his retirement from Mesa. Themove came after a long battle with dissident shareholders, whowere angry at the company's mounting debts. Critics say he heldbitter grudges against those he thought had crossed him.
In the late 1980s, Pickens shook up corporate Japan when hetried to take over Koito Manufacturing Co Ltd, a Tokyo-basedautomotive parts maker. He became the biggest single shareownerin the firm with a holding of 20.2%, about 1% more than ToyotaMotor Corp.
After butting heads with corporate management and investorsfor some two years over the raid, a rare occurrence in Japan, hesold back his holdings.
Pickens also made waves politically, helping financeaccusations by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth againstDemocratic Senator John Kerry in his 2004 presidential electioncampaign, which questioned aspects of the politician's militaryservice in the Vietnam War.
Pickens contributed hundreds of millions of dollars toOklahoma State University and set up a foundation that bears hisname, which made major donations to medical institutions inTexas. In 2005 the school renamed its football stadium for him.
He was known for his nuggets of homespun business wisdomknown as Boone-isms, such as, "A fool with a plan can beat agenius with no plan."
Pickens is survived by his five children, 11 grandchildrenand several great-grandchildren.(Reporting By StaffEditing by Marguerita Choy)
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