Tuesday, June 12, 2012 -
Kazakhstan-focused Eurasian Natural Resources Corp. (ENRC) reassured investors on Tuesday, promising improved transparency in corporate governance following a tumultuous 18 months.
“We need to make our company much more transparent and simplistic,” ENRC Chairman Mehmet Dalman said on Tuesday, as reported by Dow Jones Newswires.
“I can’t get there overnight, [but] it will be transparent and it will be simpler.”
The chairman was speaking at a press conference ahead of the annual ENRC shareholders’ meeting in London.
ENRC’s governance board had gone through several upheavals in recent months. In June 2011, several members of the management board were purged, resulting in a corporate governance review. Departing members of the board accused the company of poor governance, complaining that firm decisions were guided by the Kazakh government’s interests.
The firm is listed on the LSE Stock Exchange.
Dalman was appointed as chairman in February.
The firm is under fire for the questionable acquisition of firms in Congo, which it purchased indirectly in 2010. It settled the matter with a deal in January worth $1.25 billion, which saw its acquisition of the remaining assets in dispute.
Dalman vowed to head to Africa shortly to gain a clearer idea of what the assets hold.
“It’s going to take me several months to get there, so don’t hold me to three months exactly...It’s going to take awhile,” he said at the press briefing.