No official reason as to why the board members stepped down was given, thus we continue to monitor the situation closely.

Petrol published a document on the Ljubljana Stock Exchange announcing that the Supervisory Board agreed with three members of the Management Board to end their term in the office early through mutual agreement.

The term of Tomaž Berločnik (CEO), Rok Vodnik (board member) and Igor Stebrnak (CFO) ended effective Friday (25 October 2019). Ika Krevzel Panić will continue as Management Board member and Worker Director. Such news negatively affected the share price, which recorded a 1.4% decrease on Friday.

The announcement came as a surpirse, as Petrol published a statement on Thursday in reply to the news reported in the media, in which the Management Board of Petrol denied to have been aware of any item on the agenda of last week’s meeting of the Supervisory Board under which the members of the Supervisory Board would discuss the replacement of the Management Board.

Note that Nada Drobne Popović, the current president of the Company’s Supervisory Board, will take over as Management Board president until such time as a new Management Board is appointed. She will not perform her duties as Supervisory Board member during this time. 

According to media, the reasons behind the termination of the agreement are differences in opinion regarding the investment strategy. Allegedly, the Board insisted on pursuing investments on regional markets, which would be financed via leverage (new bond issue), which the Supervisory Board deemed unacceptable.

The change of the Management Board could potentially lead to the shift in the Group’s strategy, however no indication of that can be confirmed until mid 2020, when the company will update their strategy from June 2018.