Stolt Tankers has appointed a former Shell executive as its chief financial officer to move forward its plans for an initial public offering.
Emile Hoekstra will join the Stolt-Nielsen chemical tanker subsidiary on 15 February in a newly created role.
He spent 14 years at oil major Shell before becoming CFO at oil and gas company Dyas.
From there, Hoekstra progressed to chemicals group Orica as their CFO for Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
Stolt Tankers president Lucas Vos said: "The appointment of Emile Hoekstra as CFO is an important step in preparing Stolt Tankers for its IPO."
He added that Hoekstra's background in the oil, gas and chemical industry will increase the company's focus on growing value through "continuous improvement and process optimisation across the company".
Hoekstra was most recently the CFO at Royal Zeelandia Group, a bakery ingredients company.
Strategic thinker
He was responsible for developing and implementing a new strategy there, as well as improving commercial and operational excellence.
Stolt Tankers operates a fleet of 152 parcel tankers.
An IPO for the unit has been mooted for more than four years.
The company had been readying a split following the $575m takeover of Jo Tankers in 2016.
In 2017, the shipowner said any listing would have to come at the right time — and the chemical tanker market was not in the right position at that point.
The group said it preferred to focus on consolidation.
Talk has intensified again in the last few months, but the group says a transaction must wait for better market conditions. Rates are weak now but expected to improve in the second half of this year.
However, Stolt-Nielsen is moving ahead with an IPO for its fish farming business, Stolt Sea Farm.
