Crescent Point Defeats Activist, Winning All Board Seats
Crescent Point Shareholders Elect All Company Board Nominees
(Bloomberg) -- Crescent Point Energy Corp. triumphed over activist investor Cation Capital Inc., with all of the oil producer’s board nominees winning approval from shareholders after a rancorous proxy battle.
Cation nominees Dallas Howe and Herbert Pinder each garnered more than 100 million votes but still fell about 30 million votes shy of the nearest company nominees, Calgary-based Crescent Point said in a statement Friday. Cation founder Sandy Edmonstone and dissident nominee Thomas Budd received about 20 million votes.
The results are a victory for Chief Executive Officer Scott Saxberg, whose leadership of Crescent Point since the 2014 oil crash had come under fire from Cation. The activist, a private investment firm recently started by former Macquarie Capital Markets Canada Ltd. banker Edmonstone, had argued that the company had taken on too much debt and was growing production without regard for shareholder return.
Crescent Point defended its strategy and harshly attacked Cation’s credibility, accusing Edmonstone of seeking a quick win at shareholders’ expense and saying the activist’s nominees had conflicts of interest.
Crescent Point shares slid 1.9 percent to C$10.18 in Toronto. The stock is up 6.3 percent this year, compared with a 3 percent drop for the S&P/TSX energy index.
To contact the reporters on this story: Kevin Orland in Calgary at korland@bloomberg.net, Scott Deveau in New York at sdeveau2@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Reg Gale at rgale5@bloomberg.net, Carlos Caminada
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