http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/nexus-energy-agm-is-the-...

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/nexus-energy-agm-is-the-one-to-steal-the-show/story-e6frg8zx-1226197222272


see the last 2 paragraphs...


From: The Australian
November 17, 2011 12:00AM

Nexus challenger to focus on $2m payout

Former Nexus chief executive Richard Cottee wants shareholders to vote chief executive Michael Fowler out Source: The Australian

AS BHP Billiton's board fronts shareholders at the Melbourne Exhibition Centre this morning in probably the season's most-watched annual meeting, across the road will be one of the most interesting -- that of Nexus Energy.

At Crown Casino, Nexus founder and executive chairman Michael Fowler will be up for re-election in the face of a campaign to oust him by former managing director Richard Cottee.

If Mr Fowler and his deputy, Michael Arnett, are voted down Mr Cottee, who built coal-seam gas minnow Queensland Gas into an $6 billion takeover target, will try to return to the board either through negotiations with the remnant board members or by calling an extraordinary meeting.

With many shareholders unhappy with Nexus's share price performance, and Mr Cottee having bought shares so he can attend, the meeting will no doubt be fiery.

Most of the big shareholders, including the largest, have been tight-lipped about who they will support, leaving observers unprepared to speculate on what the Nexus board will look like by the end of the day.

At the meeting, Mr Fowler will have a fair idea, having seen the proxy votes that could decide the issue before the meeting starts.

The feud between Mr Fowler and Mr Cottee became public on September 22, when Mr Cottee left the company (or was told to leave, depending on whose version you cite) after the board would not back a deal he had done on the Echuca Shoals gas project off the coast of Western Australia.

Echuca Shoals is near the company's main asset, the Crux liquids project in WA's offshore Browse Basin -- an asset Nexus shareholders have long been waiting to be developed.

Shareholders will be asked to decide whether to continue with Mr Fowler and his promise that a long-awaited deal on Crux is close to being finalised and that a new, high-quality chief executive is on the way or to back Mr Cottee and his record of deal-making and company building.

One focus of the meeting is expected to be a $2.3 million termination payment to Mr Fowler after he stepped down from a two-year stint as executive chairman in June, only to take up the position again after Mr Cottee left.

Mr Fowler links the payment to his 11 years with the company, which he says he started after borrowing $1m from Victor Smorgon.

He says the payment was made after he resigned completely from the company in June, only to be called back at the same board meeting, at the urging of the board, and made chairman.

Mr Fowler has said he planned to step down as an executive at the end of the year, a move he also mentioned for the end of last year in the annual report, but which did not eventuate.