April 13, 2010 (FinancialWire) — The Meridian Resource Corp. (NYSE: TMR) board of directors approved an amendment to its merger agreement with Alta Mesa, which has agreed to increase its offer price for the outstanding common stock of Meridian to $0.33 per share from $0.29 per share in cash, a 14% increase over its prior offer price and a 23% premium over the closing price of Meridian stock on April 7, 2010. The merger agreement was not amended in any other respect.

A recent special meeting of shareholders will reconvene on Wednesday, April 28, 2010, at 3: 00 p.m. Central Time in the auditorium in Fulbright Tower, 1301 McKinney, Houston, Texas. The record date for shareholders entitled to vote at the meeting remains February 8, 2010. Only holders of record of our common stock on that date are entitled to vote at the reconvened special meeting.

Meridian also has hired bankruptcy counsel to prepare for a possible bankruptcy filing in the event the merger with Alta Mesa is not consummated. Officials said its lenders have agreed in principle to extend the date by which shareholder approval must be received under the forbearance agreement to a date after April 28, 2010.

Meridian will be delivering another proxy card to each shareholder of record. Meridian's board of directors unanimously recommended its shareholders vote for adoption of the merger agreement, as amended.

FinancialWire(tm) is committed to serving the financial community through true journalism and providing relevant resources to investors. Standards-based, independent equity research on numerous public companies is available through the Investrend Research Syndicate (http://www.investrend.com/reports) written by FIRST Research Consortium (http://www.investrend.com/FIRST) member-providers. Free annual reports and company filings for companies mentioned in the news are available through the Investrend Information Syndicate (at http://investrend.ar.wilink.com/?level=279). FinancialWire(tm), in cooperation with the Investrend Broadcast Syndicate, also provides complete, daily conference call and webcast schedules as a service to shareholders and investors via the FirstAlert(tm) Network’s “FirstAlert(tm) Daily” (http://www.financialwire.net/news-alerts/).

FinancialWire(tm) is a fully independent, proprietary news wire service. FinancialWire(tm) is not a press release service, and receives no compensation for its news, opinions or distributions. Further disclosure is at the FinancialWire(tm) website (http://www.financialwire.net/disclosures.php). Contact FinancialWire(tm) directly via inquiries@financialwire.net.

[frlylrf] [mrgrsacqstns] [olgssglo]

Legal Disclaimer:

EIN Presswire provides this news content "as is" without warranty of any kind. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this article. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the author above.