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http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/opinion/morgan-stanley-smith-barney-snares-evans-ace-dara-minbashian/story-e6frg9if-1225963532644

Neptune down a chief and $6m

YOU can't go wrong providing specialist services to the oil and gas industry, can you? Neptune Marine Services has, big time. The Perth company's chief, former Schlumberger heavy Christian Lange, walked the plank last Wednesday and by Monday the company was having to pull not only a grant of rights to Lange but a management performance rights plan that was "withdrawn as a result of investor and market feedback".

Make of that what you will but it didn't help that the stock was already suspended. Company chairman Ross Kennan said on Lange's exit that he'd provided "vision and tenacity that was instrumental in the transformation of Neptune from a local, single-product company to the global, multi-faceted business we have today". Less than a week later, Kennan was telling angry shareholders yesterday that Neptune had turned in an EBIT loss of $6m in the September quarter alone and gave the age-old line that "we are in detailed discussions with our bankers regarding our restructure plan".

Several shareholders had vended businesses into the topsy-like Neptune in the past couple of years in exchange for stock, the price of which has dropped from more than $1 in late 2007 to a last sale of 20.5c. As one observer put it, Neptune has "more presidents, regional vice-presidents and group vice-presidents than a small African nation".