Euronav merger hits the buffers with the Saverys family attaining a 25% stake

The year’s great tanker merger saga has taken a new turn. The Saverys family have purchased another 2.04m shares in Euronav taking their stake in the Antwerp tanker giant to 25%, effectively giving them the power to block a merger with John Fredriksen’s Frontline.

Fredriksen has been building a leading stake in Euronav for more than a year, and has initiated detailed plans to merge it with Frontline. While the Saverys family – the de facto custodians of Euronav for much of the last 25 years – can now block a full merger, a fleet combination is possible once one party in this tanker tussle gets more than 50% of shareholder votes.

In July, Euronav entered into a definitive combination agreement with Frontline whereby the Euronav brand would disappear and the new entity would be based in Cyprus. The combined group would be named Frontline, incorporated and headquartered in Cyprus and will be listed in Brussels, Oslo and New York upon tender offer completion. Euronav boss Hugo De Stoop would serve as the CEO of the merged company with Frontline CEO, Lars Barstad, joining the board. Citing regulatory difficulties the finalisation of this combination has been pushed back from Q4 this year into next year.

Fredriksen and his Frontline top management have argued that a merger makes sense in terms of economies of scale, creating the largest independent tanker owner in the world.

Alex Saverys, the CEO of Compagnie Maritime Belge (CMB), has repeatedly offered an alternative viewpoint for how he and his family see the future of Euronav.

“We don’t believe that the answer to the ongoing energy transition is to merge two companies that urgently need to reinvent themselves. We don’t need more of the same, we need more focus on decarbonisation,” Saverys said in an interview with Splash earlier this year.

Up next in the tanker tit-far-tat, CMB is expected to make a statement on its intentions while on December 20, Frontline shareholders will vote on a domicile change from Bermuda to Cyprus.