News In Brief

Gulf Oil wins vote in bid over control of company

Gulf Oil Corporation announced Friday that shareholders had approved its plan to fend off an attempt by Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens Jr. to change the way Gulf is run.

Gulf said 53 percent of its shares were voted in favor of the plan.

Gulf's management had proposed that the company be reincorporated in Delaware and recommended changes in electing directors, a move aimed at keeping Pickens and other dissidents off its board. On Saturday, Mesa Petroleum Company, of which Pickens is chairman, formally proposed that several billion dollars in Gulf assets be spun off to Gulf shareholders in the form of a royalty trust.