Bowleven shareholders inflict defeats on oil firm

BOWLEVEN has suffered a reverse after shareholders voted heavily against three key resolutions at the annual general meeting of the company, which moved its headquarters from Edinburgh to London following a boardroom coup.

The Cameroon-focused oil and gas company revealed that around 90 per cent of votes cast at Wednesday’s AGM opposed resolutions four to six, which directors had unanimously recommended shareholders support.

The defeats appear to limit the company’s freedom of manoeuvre.

If passed, resolution four would have renewed directors’ authority to allot shares in the firm, including through a rights issue.

The fifth resolution would have disapplied the rights of existing investors to be offered shares first.

Resolution six concerned the company’s authority to make offmarket purchases of its shares.

In the notice of the AGM included in the annual report Bowlen published last month, the company said: “The directors consider that the resolutions to be proposed at the AGM are in the best interests of the company and shareholders as a whole.

“Accordingly, the directors unanimously recommend that you vote in favour of the resolutions to be proposed at the AGM, as the directors intend to do in respect of their own beneficial shareholdings.”

Former Bowleven chief executive Kevin Hart was voted off the board along with four other directors in March last year after a campaign for change led by the Crown Ocean Capital investment firm.

Eli Chahin, a veteran of the banking and management consulting industries became chief executive.

Regulatory filings show the Crown Ocean Capital P1 venture has a 29.03% interest in voting rights in Bowleven shares.

Other resolutions at the latest general meeting were passed.