LONDON (Alliance News) - A New World Oil and Gas PLC shareholder action group Friday released an open letter to propose the nomination of three new directors to the board at the company's forthcoming annual general meeting to take the company in a new direction.
NWOGaction, which claims to represent shareholders in the company with a combined 11.04% stake, said it wanted to "declare its support for the nomination of Adam Reynolds, Nick Mustoe and Mark Collingbourne for election to the board" at the AGM to be held on October 29.
All three of them are "behind the recent success" of Optibiotix Health PLC and Premaitha Health PLC, and NWOGaction said Reynolds has identified a project and team that he believes is "ideally suited" to the company in the med-tech space, the action group said.
"The last four months have been incredibly difficult for the company and its shareholders. Throughout this period, the members of NWOGaction have remained committed to ensuring the best interests of the company are looked after. As such it is NWOGaction?s firm belief that the company requires a significant change in direction," said NWOGaction.
The action group did not state what roles it would ideally want to see the three hold in the company, but suggests Reynolds would lead the company via his new strategy, of which it provided no details.
It said Reynolds made a proposal to NWOGaction members which offered "an alternative business model to the one presented by the current board", which received the support of 88.7% of the shares held in New World Oil and Gas by the NWOGaction group, with only 0.8% voting against the proposals. The remaining 10.5% abstained.
"With such a strong mandate, NWOGaction is now pleased that the company?s wider shareholder base will have the opportunity to decide whether or not to accept Adam Reynolds? vision for the company, at the forthcoming AGM," said the group.
"This is a radical departure from the company?s current business model, but with the various ills afflicting the oil and gas sector, NWOGaction is convinced that such a change of course would be to the advantage of all shareholders," it added.
The letter released by NWOGaction was spearheaded by Ben Turney, a writer on investor website Shareprophets. NWOGaction was re-launched in July and was originally trying to stop a controversial open offer of shares conducted by the company, which it failed to do.
At that time of the relaunch, NWOGaction said it would "not personally seek positions on New World?s board" but said it "remains a goal of NWOGaction?s to achieve formal shareholder representation, through the appointment of an independent, credible non-executive director".
In July, it also said it had no plans to request an extraordinary general meeting because the company was "certainly too weak to survive a protracted and confrontational shareholder action".
Currently, New World's board is comprised of Chief Executive Peter Sztyk, Non-Executive Chairman Chris Einchcomb, Executive Georges Sztyk and Non-Executives Roland Hodder and Stephen Polakoff.
In the circular sent by New World Oil to its shareholders, there are four resolutions to be voted on, two of which concern the re-election of Einchcomb and Hodder.
New World Oil shares were trading down 3.3% at 0.0677 pence per share on Friday morning.
By Joshua Warner; joshuawarner@alliancenews.com; @JoshAlliance
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