Investopedia: Eni Hoping To Be An African Queen

Much like its home country, Italian energy Eni (NYSE:E) needs to rethink its approach and restructure its operations. While the company has a valuable growth-oriented exploration and production business (centered on Africa), overall performance has been held back by a collection of structurally uncompetitive downstream operations. While valuation is close to attractive, Eni is a stock that will need some time to work out.

A Tough 2011 Breaks a Strong Streak  
Eni had built a reputation as a fairly reliable under-promise/over-deliver company that routinely delivered results slightly above expectations. Although that technically continued in the fourth quarter as adjusted income was 3% above expectations, it was a low-quality beat and underlying results actually missed most sell-side estimates by about 5%.

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http://stocks.investopedia.com/stock-analysis/2012/Eni-Hoping-To-Be-An-African-Queen-E-BP-PBR-APA0227.aspx