On the Alberta side of the Montney, RMP Energy Inc. (RMP) lost four cents to 69 cents on 276,600 shares, after overhauling most of its board. This appears to be part of its continuing effort to reinvent itself. It took its first step in this direction last August, when, under pressure to reduce its debt, it began a "strategic review" of its Montney assets, meaning it put them up for sale. It had three core Montney assets at the time: Ante Creek, Waskahigan and Elmworth. Elmworth is the newest and the most exciting to RMP. The asset that got the boot was Ante Creek, which was sold to Enerplus Corp. (ERF: $10.71) in mid-November for $114-million. The changes at the top started happening soon after the sale. In early January, the seven members of RMP's board, each of whom had served since the company went public in 2011, brought in an eighth member, Josh Young. He is the co-founder and portfolio manager of Bison Interests. Bison is an energy-focused investment firm that owns 13.1 million of RMP's 65 million shares, including 1.6 million bought in March and April. Several more changes had taken place by then. Notably, John Ferguson retired as president, chief executive officer and director; a different director, Doug Baker, resigned; Jon Grimwood became the new president; and Mr. Young became chairman.
Today brought even more changes. All of the remaining directors except Mr. Young have resigned, and will be replaced by three new directors as well as a board "observer." Of the three new directors, Dean Bernhard is the most familiar to RMP's shareholders. He has served as RMP's vice-president of finance and chief financial officer since the company went public in 2011. Before that, he held the same positions at Orleans Energy, the company through which RMP went public. The other two new directors are Steven Oldman and Jay Paul McWilliams. Mr. Oldman previously worked for various oil field companies and as a financial analyst with Salomon Brothers and Bank of America. Mr. McWilliams founded LOGOS Resources in 2012 and before that was a senior engineer at Linn Energy. (Linn filed for bankruptcy in 2016, but Mr. McWilliams was long gone by then. In a separate but interesting bit of trivia, a profile of Mr. McWilliams on the Oil and Gas Investor website notes that his great-great-uncle helped drill the first commercial well in the San Juan basin of New Mexico and Colorado in 1921. The San Juan basin is where Mr. McWilliams's LOGOS focuses today.)
Lastly, the new board observer is Robert Colcleugh. He became the CEO of a Calgary-based service company called Beyond Energy at the beginning of this year, and before that spent nearly 14 years at Tristone Capital and Macquarie Group. He will observe RMP's board for now, but expects to become a director if elected at the next shareholder meeting on June 29. With so few familiar faces at the meeting, and with RMP's 69-cent stock still down sharply from its year-ago level of nearly $1.50 (and its mid-2014 high of over $10), the meeting could be an interesting one.