It's a new year without any M&A in it-yet.Soon,we'll learn how publicly held upstream companies fared in their year-end compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley 404,and the corporate-transaction games will recommence.E&P companies can feel free to marry other companies-for better compliance systems or worse.For those looking to take the plunge,there may be more corporate-transaction opportunities on the market.The likely victims of these hard-to-love,expensive,financial-reporting IT systems that companies have had to suck it up and buy into will be the smallest of the publicly held companies.Those with market capitalizations of under US700 million have received a brief,45-day extension on their SOX 404 compliance deadline;those under US100 million have until year-end 2005.
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