Helikopter - Eierne går løs på ledelsen i Bristow - ASN

New Director Slate, Management Proposed for Bristow

Wisconsin-based Global Value Investment Corp. (GVIC) continued its assault on Bristow Group’s directors and senior managers yesterday. GVIC filed a proxy statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that stated that it intended to nominate a new slate of directors at the heavily indebted helicopter services company’s next annual shareholders’ meeting, which has yet to be scheduled.

GVIC maintains that Bristow’s current leadership is defective and that its anticipated future bankruptcy filing would be ill-advised. Its proposed slate of four directors are Sten Gustafson, the former CEO of helicopter services company Era Group and a former director at CHC Helicopter; GVIC CEO Jeffrey Geygan; Anthony Gray, an attorney who led helicopter maker Sikorsky’s global compliance office from 2010 to 2013; and Jonathan Meretsky, an attorney who has served as managing director at Canada’s Merit House investment firm since 2009 and is an expert on “ocean tech” as it relates to the global oil and gas industry. 

In its filing Wednesday with the SEC, GVIC noted that Bristow’s leadership had made a “chain of bad decisions.” According to the filing, “GVIC believes recent events represent the culmination of years of mismanagement, poor strategic decisions, weak oversight, and reckless execution by Bristow’s board."

Bristow could raise additional cash quickly by disposing of underperforming assets, according to GVIC vice president James Geygan.