Belgian tanker giant Euronav is making another attempt to convince shareholders to sanction a big share buyback programme.
The New York and Brussels-listed shipowner has called a special general meeting for 20 May in Antwerp to push through a €220m ($238m) plan.
The last meeting on 9 April failed to reach the numbers of shareholders necessary to vote on the policy.
So this time it is waiving attendance rules, saying the meeting "will validly deliberate and decide on the agenda items irrespective [of] the portion of the capital represented by the shareholders participating".
Physical attendance is prohibited due to the coronavirus outbreak.
Investors had first rejected a plan to buy back up to 20% of its stock in March.
This prompted Euronav to reduce the capital return plan to 10% to address shareholder concerns ahead of the April vote. This scheme would have been worth $199m, based on its market cap of €1.79bn at that time.
Company value rises
Euronav's value has since risen to €2.2bn, however.
The tanker owner has said the scheme will not be used by the supervisory board as an "anti-takeover defence".
The idea is to return surplus capital to shareholders, increasing earnings per share or providing stock for equity compensations plans.
The board believes that share buybacks create long term value for "all stakeholders", Euronav said.
Euronav had also said it needed a vote of 75% in favour to carry the day in April.
But it also needed more than half the shareholders to attend.
Any buybacks would take place over five years.
The company is already returning cash to investors more regularly by switching to quarterly dividends following a strong fourth quarter.
There will be a fixed element of $0.03 per share, while it retains the right to pay out 80% of earnings.
The VLCC and suezmax owner recorded the highest quarterly rates since 2008 in the fourth quarter, with crude carrier fundamentals also looking strong for 2020, it said.
Net profit in the final three months of 2019 was nearly $162m, up from just $280,000 in the same period of 2018.
