End game for Todd Kozel as Chief Executive of Gulf Keystone Petroleum

Another bruising board room battle at Gulf Keystone Petroleum by the look of it. Deputy Chairman Jeremy Asher is out and CEO Todd Kozel is “retiring” but remans on the GKP board as an Executive Director.

Todd Kozel and Jeremy Asher

Asher was appointed as Deputy Chair last summer after pressure from institutional investor, M&G, to bring in four nominated persons for the board. In July 2013, Field Marshal Lord Guthrie, chairman of the GKP nominations committee, sent out a circular to shareholders criticising Asher and saying he was a “highly disruptive presence” after being “removed” from the board in 2010. He was re-appointed as a Non-Executive Director of Gulf Keystone Petroleum Ltd. in September 2013 and as Deputy Chairman in March 2014. Clearly Todd Kozel didn’t see eye to eye with him.

It seems a strange decision to allow Kozel to retire and then remain on the point as an ED and certainly makes the search for a successor more difficult. If you were a potential candidate would you seriously consider joining a company where your predecessor was hanging around and causing trouble? I guess Kozel played the card of his relationship with the Kurdistan government, the KRG to remain within the fray. A fudge by the look of it and it will be interesting to see who pulled the strings on this one.

The shares fell heavily yesterday and are down marginally today to around 80p on the news. It seems that the board room battles and recriminations may be going on a while longer while the succession plan to Asher and Kozel are sorted out. M&G certainly can’t be too chuffed. I’m sure there are many private investors who are happy to see Todd removed as CEO after the recent disappointments of the Shaikan reserves update, delayed production ramp up and underwhelming move from AIM to the main market.

The full RNS is as follows:
Gulf Keystone Petroleum Limited (“Gulf Keystone” or the “Company”)  today announces that Non-Executive Director and Deputy Chairman Jeremy Asher and Non-Executive Director John Bell have ceased to be Directors in accordance with the Company’s bye-laws. The Company will restart its previously announced search process, with the assistance of Odgers Berndtson, one of the UK’s pre-eminent executive search firms, for two new independent non-executive directors, and a further announcement on that process will be made in due course.

The Company also announces that Todd Kozel will retire from his current role of CEO at the Company’s upcoming Annual General Meeting on 17 July 2014 and that, subject to Mr. Kozel’s re-election to the Board of Directors by shareholders, he will take up a new role of Executive Director. A search for Mr Kozel’s replacement is underway with the assistance of an international executive search firm and potential candidates have been identified.

Contrarian Investor UK

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