Kuala Lumpur: Malaysia and boardroom rumbles are becoming common news threads in 2015. Malaysia’s largest oil and gas services firm, SapuraKencana Petroleum, saw its vice chairman and a non-executive director quit yesterday citing “personal reasons”.
The vice chairman was Mokhzani Mahathir, the second son of former Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad. He was one of the founders of SapuraKencana after merging his oil and gas services firm Kencana Petroleum withSapuraCrest in 2012.
Mahathir and Yeow Kheng Chew had been pulling away from SapuraKencana for some time, favouring investing in another Malaysian energy outfit, Yinson Holdings.
Mahathir has sold around 190m shares in SapuraKencana in recent months reducing his stake in the firm from 15% to 9%. Both he and Chew have since invested heavily in Yinson Holdings, becoming the second largest shareholder after its chairman with an 18.55% holding.
Both Chew and Mahathir had been relegated to non-executive positions at SapuraKencana recently.
The SapuraKencana spat follows on from another ongoing boardroom battle at Malaysia’s Tanjung Offshore where three members of the executive board were suspended in January.
