Kozel out in Gulf Keystone shake-up

INVESTORS won a ‘shoot-out’ with management at Gulf Keystone Petroleum as charismatic founder Todd Kozel was ousted as chief executive.

His departure comes a month after the finance director left, with the Kurdistanfocused oil firm under pressure from shareholders to rein in lavish pay and improve corporate governance.

While he will remain an executive director, senior sources said Kozel was the victim of a very public spat with shareholder M&G, which has 5.4pc. Supported by fellow investor Capital Research, with 5.6pc, M&G parachuted four board members into Gulf Keystone last July.

They included Jeremy Asher, who had been ousted as a non-executive by Kozel in 2010 and is understood to have returned the favour by spearheading efforts to remove him.

Asher also left the board yesterday and one source said he was leaving because it was ‘job done’.

Kozel has proved a controversial figure, with his £14m pay package in 2012 attracting criticism from investors and campaigners against excessive remuneration. But a well- placed source said his idiosyncratic manner had also ruffled feathers.

‘He has that brash entrepreneurial style, talking things up and making outlandish claims. They’re looking for a doer, not a talker.’ Another source with knowledge of Gulf Keystone Petroleum, which owns the giant Shaikan oilfield in northern Iraq, admitted the shake-up had been badly handled.

Finance director Ewen Ainsworth left last month, with the departures of Kozel, Asher and fellow M&G nominee John Bell revealed yesterday.

Several hours later Gulf Keystone (down 1.75p to 80.25p) announced the resignation of Thomas Shull, another of M&G’s four board members.

‘It’s like a shoot-out in a Western and everybody’s dead,’ said the source.

Chairman Simon Murray said the firm had begun the process of bringing in ‘top-quality talent’ to take it through the next stage of its development.