By Andrew Hill
Published: January 24 2008 19:56 | Last updated: January 24 2008 19:56
When David Greer, Regal Petroleum’s latest chairman and chief executive, refers to the company’s “somewhat chequered past”, he is understating the case. Few public companies have a more variegated recent history.
Nobody expects to get a smooth ride and predictable earnings growth from an Aim oil and gas company. But Regal has jolted even hardened investors in the sector with a succession of top executives, a failed Greek oil exploration, an impenetrable legal battle over valuable Ukrainian assets and on-off negotiations with partners, large and small. Behind it all – sometimes visible, sometimes not – was Frank Timis, Regal’s founder and largest shareholder.
The share placing announced on Thursday looks the best promise yet of putting all this behind the group. Mr Greer’s surprise enthronement as the company’s top executive last November seemed for a while to have tilted the group into crisis. It prompted Royal Dutch Shell, his former employer, to call off talks about investing in development of Regal’s gas fields in Ukraine and could have led to financial meltdown, if no alternative had emerged. But the fact that institutions have already signed up conditionally for the new shares suggests they believe Mr Greer and his new team have what it takes to develop the company without outside help. Simultaneously diluting the stake held by Mr Timis and associates and limiting their influence over the company for at least two years should also give new management breathing space.
As Mirabaud, the company’s broker, pointed out yesterday, Regal shareholders will now benefit from the whole of any increase in value in Ukraine. But the go-it-alone strategy means they would also bear the entire burden of failure. They must, then, hold Mr Greer to a tight timetable. He needs to get modern rigs into Ukraine and prove that the wells are productive within a year. For if the Regal saga has proved anything, it is that what lies underground is far more important to investors than what is happening on the surface.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
This website and sisters royaldutchshellplc.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, and shellnews.net, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.
Royal Dutch Shell conspired directly with Hitler, financed the Nazi Party, was anti-Semitic and sold out its own Dutch Jewish employees to the Nazis. Shell had a close relationship with the Nazis during and after the reign of Sir Henri Deterding, an ardent Nazi, and the founder and decades long leader of the Royal Dutch Shell Group. His burial ceremony, which had all the trappings of a state funeral, was held at his private estate in Mecklenburg, Germany. The spectacle (photographs below) included a funeral procession led by a horse drawn funeral hearse with senior Nazis officials and senior Royal Dutch Shell directors in attendance, Nazi salutes at the graveside, swastika banners on display and wreaths and personal tributes from Adolf Hitler and Reichsmarschall, Hermann Goring. Deterding was an honored associate and supporter of Hitler and a personal friend of Goring.
Deterding was the guest of Hitler during a four day summit meeting at Berchtesgaden. Sir Henri and Hitler both had ambitions on Russian oil fields. Only an honored personal guest would be rewarded with a private four day meeting at Hitler’s mountain top retreat.
IN JULY 2007, MR BILL CAMPBELL (ABOVE, A RETIRED GROUP AUDITOR OF SHELL INTERNATIONAL SENT AN EMAIL TO EVERY UK MP AND MEMBER OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS: 
MORE DETAILS:
A head-cut image of Alfred Donovan (now deceased) appears courtesy of The Wall Street Journal.
