WHILE the dramatic boardroom shake up continues at Bowleven some stakeholders at least are waiting to see much benefit.
Bowleven announced yesterday that chief operating officer David Clarkson had elected to retire from that role, which is being “closed” in line with cost saving measures initiated by the management team that took charge in March. Former chief executive Kevin Hart and four other directors were voted off the board that month following a campaign for change initiated by the Crown Ocean Capital investment firm.
Yet Bowleven shares were selling for 29p yesterday, compared with 33.25p on the day Mr Hart lost his place on the board. The firm has not paid any dividends since then.
Bowleven has moved its head office from Edinburgh to London and shed around 30 jobs. The company may have saved money that the previous management might have spent on an exploration programme that has been ended by the new team. The reform drive, however, has cost it $785,000 in compensation payments made to former directors and $742,000 in redundancy costs. Edinburgh has lost an operation that helped maintain a strong oil and gas base in the city and provided work for professional services firms.
Bowleven’s most valuable asset remains a minority stake in the Etinde permit, which contains finds past management teams did not bring into production. With other firms calling the shots on Etinde and the oil price set to stay relatively low for some time, the new directors may not be able to make faster progress on the licence than Mr Hart and colleagues did.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here