(Bloomberg) -- A minority shareholder of French hydrocarbon distributor Rubis SCA has asked for a change in the company’s governance and strategy after its shares almost halved over the past six years.

Ronald Sämann, who holds 5% in the firm, criticized its legal status in a letter to Rubis’s general partners Gilles Gobin, Jacques Riou and Clarisse Gobin-Swiecznik, arguing the current structure gives them too much sway over the company. 

Rubis shares have rebounded in recent weeks as Sämann, French billionaire Vincent Bollore and another group of investors all disclosed 5% stakes in the distributor of oil and gas products, raising speculation about a potential shake up. 

The company’s current status as a partnership limited by shares — known in French as “société en commandite par actions” —  needs to be replaced by a corporate form that restores the power of shareholders in the composition of the company’s management body, Sämann wrote in the letter dated May 1 and seen by Bloomberg. 

The inability of supervisory board members or shareholders to sanction management deprives Rubis of “best in class” personnel to implement its strategy, the Canadian businessman added. Sämann also said the lack of accountability led to Rubis’s acquisition of French solar farm developer Photosol at an “excessive valuation.”

In order to raise sufficient funds to deploy the company’s strategy in new energies, it would need to gain the confidence of new investors, Sämann wrote. If interest rates stay at current levels or increase, the planned strategy and level of expenditure may have “a very detrimental effect on the health of the company,” he concluded, while asking for a meeting with Rubis’s leaders.

Rubis is open to talk with all its shareholders, a spokesperson for company said in response to a Bloomberg query. The company has tried on several occasions and for a long time to get in touch with Sämann, and hopes to have discussions with him in the coming weeks, the representative added.

 

(Updates with company comment in last paragraph)

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