(FORTUNE Magazine) – Having run out of takeover targets, T. Boone Pickens showed he could make dramatic moves without them. This time Pickens turned his sights on his own Mesa Petroleum and offered to transform the company into a publicly traded master limited partnership. Mesa stockholders would receive about 1.3 units in the partnership for each share they hold of the company, and collect cash payments of $1.50 to $2 per unit each year for at least the next five years. Under the plan, Mesa would gradually liquidate its reserves (projected value: $3.5 billion) and turn the new surge of cash over to its limited partners. Profits from a limited partnership are taxed at the individual partner's rate (see Money & Markets). Pickens could collect close to $10.5 million from cash distributions and another $1.3 million in management fees in his new role as the general partner. The surge of new cash should stifle grumblings among shareholders about the stingy 20-cent annual dividends and the price of the stock, which has fallen nearly 50% from its 1981 high of $34.25. Mesa's stock bounced up $2.50 to $18 following the announcement, adding $168 million to Mesa's market value. ''We were not able to get a market response to some of the deals that we had done,'' Pickens conceded to FORTUNE. ''It was up to me to come up with another idea.''