A shareholder in Parkland Corp. is demanding a board shakeup because the Calgary-based gas refiner and retailer appears into placing itself up on the market.
Engine Capital LP, the New York activist hedge fund that owns 2.5 per cent of Parkland’s inventory, stated in a information launch Monday that the present board can’t be trusted to symbolize buyers’ greatest pursuits.
Engine, together with main shareholder Simpson Oil, had been calling on Parkland to make main adjustments and weigh strategic options, together with promoting the whole firm.
Parkland rebuffed that demand till earlier this month, when it stated its intrinsic worth was not mirrored in its inventory value and it could formally evaluate choices that additionally embrace a merger and asset gross sales or purchases.
“Given its monitor report of indefensible behaviour, we weren’t shocked to see the board abruptly announce a evaluate of strategic options — one thing it vehemently opposed beforehand — simply two months earlier than the 2025 annual assembly,” Engine stated within the information launch.
“The truth that Parkland’s inventory rose merely six per cent on the information says all of it: the market doubts the board’s true intentions, judgment and competence to run a real course of.”
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Parkland didn’t reply to a request for remark about Engine’s newest remarks.
Its shares closed up greater than two per cent to $36.93 on the TSX on Monday.
Engine is looking for an overhaul of the Parkland board, together with the appointment of shareholder representatives and certified impartial administrators.
“Parkland mustn’t spend further shareholder capital to withstand overdue change,” it stated. “As a long-term investor in Parkland, we consider that the board ought to work with — as a substitute of towards — its largest shareholders to maximise worth.”
Engine accused the Parkland board of losing shareholder cash on a court docket case to attempt to stop the corporate’s largest shareholder, Cayman Islands-based Simpson Oil, from voting towards administrators or any of their suggestions, offering its possession was above 5 per cent.
The restrictions on Simpson additionally included soliciting or making its personal bid for the corporate.
Simpson, which owns just below 20 per cent of Parkland’s shares, sued final 12 months to overturn these restrictions and in February the Ontario Superior Court docket of Justice present in its favour. Simpson administrators resigned from the board amid the dispute.
In asserting its strategic evaluate on March 5, Parkland stated it could invite Simpson Oil to rejoin its board and participate within the particular committee that’s reviewing attainable strikes to spice up the share value.
In its information launch Monday, Engine stated Parkland’s board refused to interact with a “credible strategic occasion who reportedly submitted a premium takeover supply in the summertime of 2023.”
Engine additionally took purpose at what it describes as Parkland’s monetary underperformance, weak engagement with shareholders and poor execution of asset gross sales.
The fund stated the board has failed to carry Parkland CEO Bob Espey accountable.
“Whereas almost the whole senior administration workforce has turned over over the last 5 years, Mr. Espey continues to be working the present after greater than a decade of great underperformance,” it stated.
© 2025 The Canadian Press
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