The gloves are clearly off in the increasingly public ruck between Africa-focused oil and gas outfit Bowleven PLC (LON:BLVN) and activist shareholder Crown Ocean Capital.
Yesterday, private investment company Crown Ocean Capital (COC), which owns 16.2% of BowLeven, published an open letter to the the oil company's shareholders ahead of the general meeting on 14 March, in which COC has proposed two new, fully independent directors and a reduced board size of three directors.
BowLeven has responded to counter what it claims are ten significant errors in the open letter.
The oil company has taken issue with COC's assertion that the board's remuneration over a ten year period was US$44mln; BowLeven said the correct figure is US$33mln.
BowLeven's directors are also opposed to reducing the size of the board. The current board maintains that reducing the number of directors to just three, as per COC's proposals, would leave the board wholly reliant on existing director David Clarkson for relevant skills in terms of oil & gas industry and the continuity of the company's relationships with its partners and Cameroon authorities.
COC had claimed never to have proposed backing a management buy-out (MBO) of the company; BowLeven claims its management were approached by COC in 2016 with a view “to seeking their support for an MBO at a level equivalent to the cash balance of the company”.
Many of the other claims addressed by BowLeven encompass esoteric details relating to the company's activities – or lack of them – in Cameroon.
Suffice to say, the seven members of the board of BowLeven continue to exhort shareholders to vote against all the resolutions at the general meeting.