D1 Oils poised to fight over bid to oust directors

May 13 2010 by Peter McCusker, The Journal

THE board of former North East biofuels company D1 Oils is poised to fight a bid by former chairman Brian Myerson to oust four of its five directors.

D1, which was set up by North East entrepreneur Karl Watkin but is now based in London, announced yesterday that a bid had been lodged by a company holding 20% of its shares to remove all of its directors apart from non-executive director Nicholas Ward.

The motion stated the directors would be replaced by two directors of Principle Capital Holdings – the company which former D1 chairman Brian Myerson helped establish.

In March this year Mr Myerson stood down from the chairman’s role at D1 after a disagreement over the direction of the company.

My Myerson had wanted to change the focus of D1 away from planting biofuel crop jatropha and into building a biofuel production facility in Mozambique.

DI’s existing board will now have to hold a general meeting within 28 days to discuss the motion by Principle Capital sister company Evo Nominees.

However, the board has said it will fight the resolution.

The spat follows last week’s announcement that D1 Oils is in advanced talks with two parties over the sale of the business.

However, D1 has also said that if no deal was struck in the next two months it may press ahead with further investment in its jatropha planting operations in India.

D1 moved out of biofuel production in 2008 when it shut its refineries in Middlesbrough and Merseyside with the loss of 90 jobs to concentrate on the production of jatropha oil crop.

Following Mr Myerson’s departure from the board, non-executive director Barclay Forrest assumed the role of chairman. The other directors are chief executive Ben Good, plant science director Dr Henk Joos, operations director Martin Jarvis, and Nicholas Ward, non-executive director.