BOWLEVEN has agreed to sell a stake in one of its Cameroon assets ahead of a shareholder vote on proposals for a boardroom purge at the oil and gas firm.
The Edinburgh-based company announced Victoria Oil & Gas is set to acquire an 80 per cent interest in the Bomono onshore licence.
Chief executive Kevin Hart said the farm-in could accelerate the process of realising cash from the discoveries on the acreage while reducing the amount the firm will have to pay to bring them onstream.
Bowleven, which also has interests in the Etinde permit off Cameroon, does not have any producing assets.
It is in a dispute with a rebel investor, Crown Ocean Capital, which should reach a conclusion at a general meeting scheduled for 14 March.
Crown Ocean Capital has requisitioned resolutions calling for Mr Hart and five other Bowleven directors to be ousted. It wants two new directors appointed to run the company with chief operating officer David Clarkson.
Victoria Oil & Gas has the right to terminate the agreement if any of the nine resolutions requisitioned by Crown Ocean Capital are passed
Monaco-based Crown Ocean Capital has accused Bowleven of a catastrophic financial performance and said a radical change of strategy is needed to prevent the company wasting its remaining $95 million cash.The investment firm said yesterday it had increased its holding in Bowleven to 22 per cent, from 17.6 per cent. It has said Bowleven should focus on Etinde.
Bowleven has said Crown Ocean Capital wants to turn the company into a cash dispenser for its own benefit and lacks a strategy to maximise value from the firm’s assets in Cameroon.
Bowleven would get a share of the revenues achieved by Victoria from output from Bomono, a royalty and £100,000 shares in the firm. It did not give an estimate of the likely revenues.
Crown Ocean Capital said the planned deal would not remotely recover for shareholders the $100m plus so far spent on the Bomono project.
A spokesman for Bowleven said: “Crown Ocean Capital advocated abandoning a development which can deliver millions of dollars per annum for shareholders.”
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