WHILE the new management team at Bowleven thinks the oil and gas firm has been transformed since it took charge in March after a boardroom cull some stakeholders are waiting to see much benefit. Bowleven has closed its head office in Edinburgh and shed around 30 jobs under plans to slash costs.
Directors are confident the ten or so staff in its new London base will be able to create lots of value for shareholders with a focus on maximising the value of Bowleven’s Cameroon assets.
These were bought before the Crown Ocean Capital investment firm launched a campaign for change which led to former chief executive Kevin Hart and four other directors being voted off the board. New boss Eli Chahin yesterday noted the complexity Bowleven faces in Cameroon.
It can only proceed on the prized Etinde permit offshore with the agreement of other firms and the country’s government, all of which may have other priorities.
Shares in Bowleven traded at 32p yesterday, against 33.25p on the day Mr Hart was voted off the board.
They fetched 24.5p when Crown Ocean began pushing for change last November since when it has upped its holding from 13 per cent of the total to 26 per cent. The shares sold for 232p in December 2006, a month after Mr Hart took charge.
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