Posted on May 23, 2022
The Saverys family have lost their first battle at Euronav. More than two-thirds of the shareholders at Euronav’s annual general meeting on Thursday voted against the admission of three representatives of the Saverys family’s Compagnie Maritime Belge (CMB) to the board of directors.
The three directors proposed by CMB, Ludovic Saverys, Patrick De Brabandere and Bjarte Boe, were voted out. Instead, the general meeting approved the reappointment of both Grace Skaugen and Anne-Hélène Monsellato as independent directors for terms of two years, as well as Steven Smith, who previously served as a member of the board from 2018 to 2019. Euronav’s Grace Skaugen has been nominated as the new chairperson.
CMB, which has been in control of Euronav since 1997, publicly opposed the merger of the Antwerp-based tanker giant with John Fredriksen’s Frontline and pressed for a combination with hydrogen technology developer CMB Tech.
Euronav and Frontline plan to combine their fleets in an all-share deal to create Europe’s largest tanker firm. The merger has not yet been decided and requires a special general meeting and 75% of the vote. The Saverys family owns around 18.5% of Euronav and needs at least 25% of the votes to block the merger.
