How the IOC BOD screwed the shareholders

[oliver.gump]

Admin, this wasnt a mistake, it was a deliberate action. Byker Lewis, and Andrews wanted the company sold. PM wanted only to bring XOM in as a partner to E/A. Ultimately MH was brought in by Lewis, under the approval of Byker and Andrews to operate the chop-shop, drive the price down, and get a sale for the entire enchilada.

That is why there was a huge change of control payment for Hession that grew larger (Much Larger) with each restatement of his contract.

The screwing started in 2012 and is almost done.

In January, Hession for the first time since he was employed, spent some of his own money on shares at the bottom of the market at $24.09, whilst he was in possession of information regarding BOTH the OSH and XOM negotiations.

What more is needed to show that Hession and his entire executive team are lice?

The BOD is complicit in all of this action except for Katherine Hirshfeldt whow was made a member of the compensation committee and then promptly quit. (presumably when she became aware of how Hession was using the BOD to milk the shareholders?)

But to answer your question: Money, LOTS of money. Hession has taken in salary, bonuses, and change oc control payments, more than the CEOs of BP, Shell, and BG, combined!, in 2015 while at the same time presiding over a 60% decrease in market cap, and the total depletion of liquid assets, and the conversion of shareholder equity into debt.

I get the Hession incentives part, but the BOD, not so much. Why where they apparently hell bent to sell the company but refused an offer from Exxon that was supposedly better than that of Total?

I could be off by a bit, but roughly monetized gas (that is, LNG) sells for 10x the amount of discoverd and proven gas, which sells for 10x the amount of undiscovered gas.

We always fancied IOC to sell as much of the former to plough back into increasing the amounts of the latter, rinse, repeat. Surey that would have worked for the BOD, unless they were in a hurry or had alterior motives/incentives I'm not aware off.

Roger Lewis has a very long standing personal and business relationship with Michael Hession, and the timing is such that Hession was prepared, and on "gardening leave" before IOC was officially looking for a new CEO. This was orchestrated by Lewis, and Byker, and the others were willing dupes that became instrumental to the process.

One wonders if there were favors owed, markers called, or money promised between frat brothers of the same alma mater.? Whatever the underlying impetus, the result was that they planned this from the start and followed that plan to the letter, and the shareholders equity was turned into executive cash.

Lewis & Hession and 100% of the executive team have significant overlaps in previous employers, eg: All of them worked for Woodside, half of them worked for BP.