Tidewater Elects Mr. Larry T. Rigdon Chairman of the Board and Announces Reduction in Board Size
October 30 2019 - 5:38PM
Business Wire
Tidewater Inc. (NYSE: TDW) (“Tidewater” or the “Company”) is
pleased to announce that Mr. Larry T. Rigdon has been elected
Chairman of the Board of Tidewater Inc. effective October 28th. Mr.
Rigdon replaces Dr. Thomas R. Bates, Jr., who has recently resigned
from the board.
Mr. Rigdon has been a member of the Tidewater Board of Directors
since August 2017. He has extensive prior experience as an
executive at Tidewater. Mr. Rigdon served as Interim Chief
Executive Officer of Tidewater for the five-month period ended
March 2018 and had previously joined the Company in 1992 upon the
merger with Zapata Gulf Marine Corporation. After successive roles
of increasing responsibility, he left the Company as Executive Vice
President in 2002. He then successfully founded and grew Rigdon
Marine Corporation to an owner of 28 offshore service vessels,
selling the company in June 2008 to GulfMark Offshore, Inc.
(“GulfMark”), where he became a board member thereof until 2010.
Mr. Rigdon also currently serves as a director of Professional
Rental Tools, LLC.
Coincident with the merger of Tidewater and GulfMark in 2018,
the Tidewater board was expanded from seven to ten members. Since
then, the board has been in a process of determining its optimal
size and composition. The board determined that operational
efficiency is a key success factor for the Company as it addresses
long-standing challenges facing the OSV industry and executes on
the opportunities afforded the industry’s best-capitalized and
leading global operator. In this regard, the board is committed to
lead by example and will “do more with less”. The board believes a
smaller board will not only be more cost-effective, but will enable
the board to be more responsive and efficient as it advances the
Company’s strategic goals. Accordingly, the board committed to a
reduction in its size to seven members at the next annual meeting
of stockholders.
Additionally, the Company announces that the size of the board
has been reduced from ten to eight members effective immediately.
The immediate reduction in board size is the result of the
resignation of Dr. Thomas R. Bates, Jr. and Mr. Steven L. Newman.
These resignations were not the result of any known disagreements
between the resigning directors and management or the board of
Tidewater.
In connection with these changes, the board has appointed,
effective immediately, Ms. Randee E. Day to be Chairwoman of the
Nominating & Governance Committee, Mr. Louis A. Raspino to be
Chairman of the Compensation Committee, and has confirmed Mr. Dick
H. Fagerstal as Chairman of the Audit Committee.
The seven directors that the Tidewater board intends to nominate
for election at the 2020 annual meeting of stockholders are: Randee
E. Day, Dick H. Fagerstal, Quintin V. Kneen, Louis A. Raspino,
Larry T. Rigdon, Robert P. Tamburino and Kenneth H. Traub.
Larry T. Rigdon, Chairman of the Board of Tidewater, commented,
“I am thrilled to be taking over the leadership of the Tidewater
board at this important time in the company’s history. The board
made an important decision recently in appointing Quintin V. Kneen
as our President and Chief Executive Officer, and he has our
complete support. Quintin is already doing a fantastic job in
leading Tidewater with improved capital discipline and
accountability, more efficient operations and expanding strategic
opportunities. With our streamlined and focused board and the
strong management team led by Quintin, I am confident that
Tidewater is well-positioned for long-term success.”
Quintin V. Kneen, Tidewater’s President and Chief Executive
Officer, commented, “Market conditions across all of our operating
areas are showing signs of recovery. Although the industry remains
oversupplied, the potential to create long-term value through
consolidation and disciplined capital management is clearer today
than it has been in the past 5 years. We have been aggressively
restructuring our shore base operations and our management
structure over the past two months to improve the efficiency and
scalability of our operations. Our strong balance sheet, combined
with the successful rollout in October of our enhanced information
system, positions Tidewater as the only market participant with a
scalable global infrastructure capable of significant consolidation
in the offshore support vessel industry.”
About Tidewater
Tidewater owns and operates the largest fleet of Offshore
Support Vessels in the industry, with over 60 years of experience
supporting offshore energy exploration and production activities
worldwide.
FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS
In accordance with the safe harbor provisions of the Private
Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, Tidewater notes that
certain statements set forth in this presentation provide other
than historical information and are forward looking. The unfolding
of future economic or business developments may happen in a way not
as anticipated or projected by Tidewater and may involve numerous
risks and uncertainties that may cause Tidewater’s actual
achievement of any forecasted results to be materially different
from that stated or implied in the forward-looking statement. Among
those risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond the control
of Tidewater include, without limitation the anticipated synergies
with respect to the combination of Tidewater and GulfMark;
fluctuations in worldwide energy demand and oil and gas prices;
fleet additions by competitors and industry overcapacity; customer
actions including changes in capital spending for offshore
exploration, development and production and changes in demands for
different vessel specifications; acts of terrorism and piracy; the
impact of potential information technology, cybersecurity or data
security breaches; significant weather conditions; unsettled
political conditions, war, civil unrest and governmental actions,
especially in higher political risk countries where we operate;
labor changes proposed by international conventions; increased
regulatory burdens and oversight; changes in law, economic and
global financial market conditions, including the effect of
enactment of U.S. tax reform or other tax law changes, trade policy
and tariffs, interest and foreign currency exchange rate
volatility, commodity and equity prices and the value of financial
assets; and enforcement of laws related to the environment, labor
and foreign corrupt practices. Readers should consider all of these
risk factors, as well as other information contained in Tidewater’s
form 10-Ks and 10-Qs.
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version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20191030006141/en/
Tidewater Inc. Investor Relations Quintin Kneen
+1713-470-5300
SOURCE: Tidewater Inc.
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