	wall street stocks tenneco inc tgt tenneco inc a company that has long been rumored to be a takeover candidate rose sharply today when speculation surfaced that investor t boone pickens may be targeting the company for an uisition traders and analysts said tenneco spokesman joseph macrum said we have no comment to make whatsoever pickens was not available for comment traders noted that activity in the stock increased today after a published report linked pickens to tenneco tenneco rose two points to paul feretti an analyst with new orleans based howard weil labouisse friedrichs inc said he was not surprised at market rumors that tenneco might be the target of a takeover attempt it s pure market speculation that boone pickens and his group may be interested feretti said but tenneco would be a challenge to run because of its sheer size and diversity mr pickens is a man who likes a challenge pickens who made an unsuccessful attempt to take over dallas based diamond shamrock corp dia last winter has made no secret of his plans to uire additional natural gas reserves in the belief that gas prices will stabilize sooner than oil prices tenneco holds natural gas reserves estimated in excess of trillion cubic feet analysts said feretti conservatively estimated tenneco s breakup value at dlrs a share and said the company generated a cash flow of about dlrs a share which is probably very attractive to pickens other analysts however estimate a breakup value well into the dlr a share range i strongly doubt that there is going to be any hostile takeover drexel burnham lambert inc s houston based analyst john olson said putting little credence in the rumors tenneco is a gargantuan enterprise with seven billion dlrs in long term debt and preferred stock outstanding he said the buyer would also have to deal with the intractable problems tenneco faces with its farm equipment unit and energy businesses analysts suggested that tenneco could use a number of defensive strategies to fend off an unwanted buyer such as spin off some of its non energy businesses directly to shareholders buy back shares or create a limited partnership out of its natural gas pipeline interests an analyst who asked to remain unidentified discouraged the pickens rumor pickens has a plateful already with his holdings in burlington northern and amerada hess he said i don t think he would be willing to take on tenneco s problems with case the farm equipment unit which has been losing about mln dlrs annually and is worth less than a billion dlrs on the market today reuter 
