Tanker owner Euronav faces a potentially decisive vote on its future in Brussels today as heavyweight investors struggle for control of the VLCC and suezmax owner.
Shareholders must decide which of 12 potential directors retain their seats or join the supervisory board as heavyweight investors John Fredriksen and the Saverys family clash over strategy.
The vote has been instigated by the Saverys clan, which has a 25% stake, as does Fredriksen.
The family’s shipping company CMB wants to oust the current five-person board and install their own candidates as it seeks to steer Euronav towards diversification into container ship and bulker owning, and decarbonisation.
CMB believes current Euronav chair Grace Reksten Skaugen and directors Anne-Helene Monsellato, Steven Smith, Anita Odedra and Carl Trowell are too wedded to the idea of a tie-up with Fredriksen’s Frontline.
This bid failed earlier in the year because CMB had a big enough stake to block a full legal merger.
But the doomed transaction is the reason for the current impasse.
Both major shareholding groups have spent hundreds of millions shoring up their positions, dating back to 2021 when Fredriksen became a shareholder.
Euronav management argues that CMB’s three independent board nominations are anything but.
They are Julie De Nul, a director at the Flemish Construction Confederation VCB; Catharina Scheers, who is on the board of the Antwerp Shipping Federation and BRABO; and Patrick Molis, who last served as a board member of French owner Compagnie Meridionale de Navigation.
‘Back-door control?’
Bosses at the tanker company say a CMB victory later on Thursday will give it control through “the back door”.
Euronav is suggesting a compromise solution whereby the current board remains in place, supplemented by Saverys patriarch Marc Saverys and CMB finance chief Patrick de Brabandere, as well as Fredriksen himself and his other nomination, shipping investor Cato Stonex.
CMB has been here before. Last May, it failed in a bid to have three of its nominees voted on to the board as it sought to thwart the Frontline combination.
Each candidate will face an individual vote, meaning any combination is possible, even no directors at all, although what happens then is anyone’s guess.
CMB has not objected to Fredriksen’s board nominations.
The big question
But the Fredriksen group has not indicated which way it is likely to vote.
And this decision is harder to read.
On the one hand, Fredriksen shares management’s vision of Euronav as a pure tanker company as he seeks consolidation in the sector.
On the other, the fall-out from the failed merger has been acrimonious and Frontline has been taken to arbitration by Euronav over its reasons for pulling out, which have never been fully explained.
This is hardly likely to endear bosses to the tycoon.
Euronav chief executive Hugo De Stoop has said that if Fredriksen and Stonex join the board, they would have to leave the room when discussions about the legal action are held.
Proxy firms back bosses
The two biggest shareholder proxy advisors, Institutional Shareholder Services and Glass Lewis & Co, have come out in favour of Euronav’s recommendation to keep the existing board and supplement it with Fredriksen, Stonex, Saverys and De Brabandere.
This could prove a decisive factor for the 50% of votes not controlled by the two main shareholder groups, and could mean the smart money is on this expanded board compromise.
This outcome could make any talks on a future solution for Euronav easier, including a potential split of its assets between the two big investors.
