A top executive at Norway’s Seadrill , the world’s largest rig company by market capitalization, quit the board on Friday, sending the firm’s shares 4 percent lower.
Tor Olav Troeim, who until recently was referred to as the right-hand man of big Seadrill shareholder John Fredriksen, will not seek reelection to the board of Seadrill, minutes from the annual general meeting showed on Friday.
Seadrill said in a statement Troeim would focus his efforts on developing liquefied natural gas shipping firm Golar LNG .
Troeim was not immediately available for comment.
The company’s shares were 4 percent lower at 1426 GMT, lagging the Oslo benchmark index’s 0.11 percent fall.
Troeim announced in July he would withdraw from the boards of several of Fredriksen’s companies “to focus his resources on fewer investments” but said at the time he would stay on the board of Seadrill.
Troeim, who has worked with shipping billionaire Fredriksen since the 1990s, had been instrumental in turning Seadrill from a small Norwegian rig firm into a major player in the oil sector.
In July Troeim owned 2.64 million shares in Seadrill. Friday’s statement did not say whether he would sell his stake.
On Friday, Fredriksen reaffirmed his commitment to Seadrill, in which he is the biggest investor with a 24 percent stake.
“I consider my stake in Seadrill a long-term investment and investors can rest assured that no divestment is considered for (the) foreseeable future,” Fredriksen said in the statement.
Seadrill shares have fallen by a quarter since the beginning of the year as oil companies curtail spending, hitting the rig sector hard, and due to international sanctions against Russia that are threatening a major partnership Seadrill has with oil producer Rosneft.
[QUOTE=powerabout;144632]Qe makes the rich richer but
You get overpriced underutilised assets or the fuel for a crash…just waiting for the spark[/QUOTE]
Some of use remember R&B/Falcon’s spectacular collapse brought about by being too ambitious and assuming much too much debt. A situation similar to Seadrill’s but in R&B/Falcon’s case the spark was a huge drop in oil prices right when they were taking delivery of all their newbuild drillships and rigs. I recall the price of a bbl of crude going down to $10.60 in early 1999 then but that is not going to happen again. There is too much global demand these days and too many USD awash in the world.
The collapse of R&B/Falcon is when Transocean bought them up, correct? 2000-2001? Transocean must have had quite a bit of debt at that time too, although as a bigger company they were able to swallow up R&B. I don’t think Seadrill will crumble. Neither will Transocean. At least I hope not. I think both will weather the storm along with a few others.
[QUOTE=ENG.207;144709]The collapse of R&B/Falcon is when Transocean bought them up, correct? 2000-2001? Transocean must have had quite a bit of debt at that time too, although as a bigger company they were able to swallow up R&B. I don’t think Seadrill will crumble. Neither will Transocean. At least I hope not. I think both will weather the storm along with a few others.[/QUOTE]
yup, ol TO came in and assumed all the debt but I don’t think had to pony up any cash. I don’t know if any of the R&B shareholders got any TO stock out of the deal but I do know that TO had wanted R&B for many years leading up to the time that R&B fell flat on their face. When the moment came, they were poised and ready to make their move. The rest is history but to give credit to R&B, the DEEPWATER class drillships were the most successful of all the generation built in the late 90’s. They were the first to go to Korea and every other major drillship since has been built on that same model. Of course, R&B/Falcon had a ton of junk as well.
regarding TO and Seadrill it is all about the cash on hand and the locked in long term charter rates you do sit on. If you have plenty of both, you can survive just about any downturn.
Share price should have all those items priced in…hopefully.Saying that look at the suckers that bought baba, thinking they bought shares in alibaba.The baba caymans island shell company only has as an asset a promise that if alibaba ever issue a dividend it will get distributed via the caymans island company, good luck with that.The 2 drivers of the share market are…Fear and greed