TORONTO, CANADA / ACCESSWIRE / OCTOBER 9, 2014 / Afrique Energie Corp., Panoro Energy ASA`s largest shareholder announced today its support for the election of Ms. Silje Augustson, Ms. Rosa Whitaker, Ms. Alexandra Hergen, Mr. Julien Balkany and Mr. Lars Brandeggen to the Board of Directors of Panoro Energy ASA ("Panoro" or the "Company") (OSX: PEN). These nominees have been endorsed by the nominating committee`s recommendation to shareholders released on October 8, 2014.
Mark Lawson, President of Afrique Energie Corp. said: "We are pleased to see the Company progress towards addressing some of the key challenges brought to light by ourselves and other large shareholders, including Nanes Balkany Partners and Mr. Lars Brandeggen.
"The director nominees possess the level of corporate governance, capital markets, international oil and gas and African specific expertise that will be crucial to optimize Panoro’s assets and create shareholder value. Today’s announcement is a significant first step in the evolution of the Company and we look forward to the contributions of the new Directors."
About the Five Director Nominees:
Ms. Alexandra Herger
Ms. Herger is a US citizen based in Maine, and has extensive leadership experience in worldwide exploration for oil and gas companies. Ms. Herger has 35 years of global experience in the upstream oil and gas industry. She most recently served as Vice President of Global Exploration for Marathon Oil Corporation from April 2014 until her retirement during the summer of 2014. Prior to this position, Ms. Herger was appointed Director of International Exploration and New Ventures for Marathon Oil Company from November 2008 to April 2014. She led five new country entries and was responsible for adding net discovered resources of over 500 million boe to Marathon’s portfolio.
Before joining Marathon, she was at Shell E&P Company from 2002-2006. Prior to the merger with Shell, Ms. Herger was Vice President of Gulf of Mexico for Enterprise Oil from 1998-2002. Earlier, Ms. Herger held positions of increasing responsibility in oil and gas exploration and production, operations, and planning with Hess Corporation and ExxonMobil Corporation. Ms. Herger holds a Bachelor’s degree in geology from Ohio Wesleyan University and post-graduate studies in geology from The University of Houston. Ms. Herger is a member of Leadership Texas, the Foundation for Women’s Resources, and was on the advisory board of the Women’s Global Leadership Conference in Houston, Texas from 2010 to 2013.
Ms. Silje Augustson
Ms. Augustson is a Norwegian citizen based in Switzerland, has significant experience from the capital markets and the financial services industries mainly based out of London. Her experience spans from roles within equity sales and research in investment banking, to business development, strategy and investor capital fundraising in the alternative asset management industry. Since 2004, she has held several board directorships in the area of fund management participating in fund restructuring situations as well taking lead roles in activist investor campaigns.
Ms. Augustson has held positions with JP Morgan, The Brunswick Group, Theorema Asset Management, Belay Asset Management and is currently consulting through Peak Alliance Group Limited, a firm she founded in 2005. She sits on the board of the Storm Nordic Fund, the Storm Bond Fund and SurfSide Holding AS. She is a Non-Executive Director of Panoro Energy. She holds a Degree in Economics from the University of Toulouse UT1 (1996), and a Master in European Management/Diplome de Grande Ecole from ESCP-EAP (1999).
Mr. Julien Balkany (Chairman elect)
Mr. Balkany, a French citizen resident in London, and has served as managing member and Founder of Nanes Balkany Partners LLC, a NY-based activist hedge fund which primarily pursues value investments in publicly traded oil and gas companies, since January 2008.
Mr. Balkany has been since May 2014 a Non-Executive Director of Gasfrac Energy Services (ticker: GFS CN), a Calgary-based oil and gas fracking services company listed on the TSX since May this year. Mr. Balkany has also served as Vice-Chairman and Director of Toreador Resources Corp. (ticker: TRGL US), an oil and gas exploration and production company with operations in Continental Europe and listed on the NASDAQ, from January 2009 to March 2011.
Mr. Balkany is also the Chairman of the Advisory Board of Stellar Energy, a London-based Investment Bank dedicated to the oil and gas industry. At the same time, Mr. Balkany has been a Managing Director at Nanes Delorme Capital Management LLC, a New York based financial advisory and broker-dealer firm, since 2005. Before joining Nanes Delorme Capital Management LLC and co- founding Nanes Balkany Partners, Mr. Balkany worked at Pierson Capital, a U.S. private investment firm focused primarily on emerging markets, from 2003 to 2005. Prior to that Mr. Balkany gained significant expertise in the Emerging Markets Debt Capital Markets Group of Bear Stearns & Co., Inc. Mr. Balkany studied Political Science at the Institute of Political Studies (France) and Finance at UC Berkeley. Mr. Balkany is fluent in French, English and Spanish.
Ms. Rosa Whitaker
Ms. Whitaker is a US citizen who is currently the President and CEO of The Whitaker Group. She is widely recognized as one of the world’s foremost experts on Africa trade, investment and business. Named in 2010 as one of Foreign Policy Magazine’s top global thinkers, Ms. Whitaker served as the first ever Assistant United State Trade Representative for Africa under the administrations of President Clinton and President George W. Bush.
Rosa Whitaker is one of the hands-on architects of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), America’s first comprehensive trade law with African countries. AGOA provides duty-free access to the US market for essentially all African-made products. AGOA continues to be the centre-piece of US-Africa economic policy. As the lead US negotiator for bilateral and multilateral trade agreements, she was the prime mover behind a series of unprecedented initiatives to enhance US trade, investment and economic cooperation with African countries. Ms. Whitaker also served as a career US diplomat specializing in African economic matters.
In 2014, she was the first American to be given the "Africa Economy Builders" award which complements numerous honors recognizing her 30-plus years of demonstrated achievement in forging investment and trade ties with Africa. In 2003, Consumers for World Trade inducted her into the Hall of Fame for Trade. Ms. Whitaker is a Vice Chair of the Executive Board of Mercy Ships, a global faith-based charity operating the largest private hospital ship in the world. She also served on the Board of the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE), the Center for Global Prosperity and she previously served as Vice Chair of the US-South Africa Business Council. Ms. Whitaker is regularly featured in the press on Africa trade issues and has lectured at the National Defense University, MIT and Carnegie Mellon University. She holds Master’s and Bachelor’s degrees from the American University in Washington, D.C.
Mr. Lars Brandeggen
Mr. Brandeggen is a Norwegian citizen based in Oslo is a private investor with Scandanavian markets expertise. He is the Founder and owner of investor community XtraInvestor.com. Chairman of Nordic Financials (ticker NOFIN.OL). He was elected Chairman of NOFIN as an activist investor in January 2014 and under his successful leadership, by September the same year NOFIN had returned to the shareholders an impressive increment of 120% of the share price at that time to its shareholders. Prior to this he served as the Chairman of 1880 Directory Assistance - the second largest telephone directory assistance company in Norway (sold to Findexa).
Mr. Bradeggen was also previously Chairman of real estate service company Sigma and managed the process that ended with the company being sold to Sodexho. Mr. Brandeggen`s experience spans previous roles in commercial and investment banking (analyst & corporate finance). He holds a MBA from University of Lund, Sweden.
ON BEHALF OF AFRIQUE ENERGIE CORP.
Mark Lawson, President & Director
For further information, please contact Mark Lawson at +41 0 22 595 0005 or by email at [email protected]
SOURCE: Afrique Energie Corp.