Nov 8 (Reuters) – One of SandRidge Energy Inc’s top
shareholders called for the oil and gas company to considering
selling itself and for Chief Executive Tom Ward to step down,
saying management’s strategy has been “incoherent, unpredictable
and volatile.”
Investor TPG-Axon, which said it owns more than 4.5 percent
of SandRidge, sent a letter to the company on Thursday in which
it also called for SandRidge’s board to be significantly
reconfigured.
TPG-Axon said in the letter it believes SandRidge could be
worth $12 to $14 per share, compared with its current $6-a-share
value as of closing on Wednesday.
“SandRidge stock performance has been nothing short of
disastrous, on both an absolute and relative basis, since the
company’s IPO in 2007,” TPG-Axon founder Dinakar Singh wrote in
a letter to the SandRidge board.
Singh wrote that even when considering the financial crisis
and the collapse of natural gas prices, “many of the (company’s)
wounds have been self-inflicted.”
He pointed to what he called appalling corporate governance
and reckless spending that “has resulted in repeated financial
emergencies, and caused massive dilution, soaring cost of
capital, and unnecessary risks for shareholders.”
SandRidge could not immediately be reached to comment.
