A group of shareholders in Ithaca Energy has called for the oil and gas firm to appoint new directors because its board has “stagnated”.
JEC Capital Partners and Anthion Master Fund also requested for the business to be sold.
The firms want two independent directors to join the board to “prevent further deterioration of shareholder value” and called for a shareholder meeting to vote on the appointments.
The investors, which hold more than 7% of Ithaca’s shares between them, said there had only been one change to the company’s board since 2008, adding that since 2010 the firm’s share price has not sustained any increase in value.
Although the two directors JEC and Anthion wanted to see appointed were not named, Ithaca said yesterday that neither had energy-industry experience and turned down the shareholders’ request for a meeting.
Last year, Ithaca – which has offices in Aberdeen and is operator of the Greater Stella Area (GSA) project in the North Sea – syndicated a £268million loan to fund development capital expenditure and future asset acquisitions.
Michael Torok, managing director of JEC Capital Partners, said: “As Ithaca continues to talk about its ability to finance acquisitions with its existing credit facility, JEC Capital has grown increasingly concerned that Ithaca will continue to pursue a strategy that has already failed to generate any shareholder value.
“This failure is ever apparent by the share price. With the GSA development continuing and major milestones to be achieved this year, we believe Ithaca should immediately rectify the decrease in shareholder value through a formal auction process designed to lead to a sale of the entire company.”
Last year, Canadian-based Ithaca received a takeover proposal from an unnamed company, believed to be worth £540million, but the deal fell through.
In a statement yesterday, Ithaca said it was committed to considering the views of all its shareholders, but added: “Ithaca has formal corporate governance procedures in place for assessing the composition of the board and for appointing new directors to the board.
“As such, the board does not support the proposal put to the company by the two shareholders and does not consider it to be in the best interests of all of its shareholders.”
Oil and gas firm BG Group said yesterday it had sold non-core gas infrastructure in the US for £85million.
The operator said it had agreed a deal with Exco Resources for all of its interests in the shallow, conventional producing assets and acreage in the Cotton Valley in east Texas and north Louisiana. Meanwhile, BG said Fabio Barbosa had stepped down as chief financial officer and executive director for personal reasons, and had been appointed chairman of BG South America.
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