Gulf Keystone Petroleum (GKP) has come to an accommodation with key shareholders ahead of Thursday’s AGM. Last week, GKP rejected calls from M&G Recovery Fund (a 5.1 per cent stakeholder) to appoint four of its candidates to the board. GKP, which had been criticised by M&G over issues linked to director remuneration, cited a general lack of experience amongst the candidates, together with a view that one of their number, Jeremy Asher, had been a “disruptive” influence during a previous stint as a GKP director.
But, we have peace in our time. M&G and Capital Research Global Investors, a 4.2 per cent shareholder, have subsequently informed GKP that they would be willing to back the appointment of two additional independent non-executives, which would effectively restrict the board to a dozen directors in total. In exchange, the two stakeholders have agreed to give their backing to the appointment of Simon Murray as chairman, after having previously made calls for the full details of his benefits package to be made public. GKP co-founder Ali Al-Qabandi, and former chairman of the remuneration committee Mehdi Varzi, have agreed to step down from the board.
