RE: Comment1 Jul 2018 10:49
The oil industry veteran who this week resigned as chairman of Hurricane Energy has accused the company of falling short of the governance and leadership standards expected of a publicly listed group.
Hurricane, the oil explorer that claims to be sitting on the biggest new discovery beneath UK waters so far this century, on Thursday said Robert Arnott had resigned as non-executive chairman “with immediate effect”. The company also spelt out its ambition to graduate from London’s junior Aim market to secure a premium listing on a “recognised stock exchange”.
Mr Arnott, a former investment banker with more than three decades of experience in the oil and gas industry, said in a statement sent to the Financial Times that his efforts to urgently improve standards in governance and the company’s leadership culture had “failed to succeed due to a reluctance to implement immediate change”.
He added that “a substantial gap still exists between the company’s current standards of governance and leadership culture, and those expected of a publicly listed company”. This prompted his decision to resign, despite having only joined the board last year.
Hurricane has not yet committed to a particular exchange but a main market listing on the London Stock Exchange is most likely. It has created a subcommittee of the board to evaluate the options as well as review the company’s structure, including its governance arrangements.
The group said in a separate statement there had not been an “alignment of views” between Mr Arnott and the rest of the board “on certain aspects of the board’s processes and proposed changes”.
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