Gore Street Energy Storage (GSF) is to speed up the replacement of its board of directors in response to the significant minority votes against their re-election at the recent extraordinary and annual general meetings of shareholders.
Following the appointment last month of infrastructure investor Simon Merriweather, the board is close to announcing a new non-executive and will also unveil “accelerated succession arrangements” for chair Patrick Cox and senior independent director Caroline Banszky as well as Max King and Tom Murley.
Cox and Banszky were the target of a resolution to remove them brought by RM Funds at the EGM in August which received support of around 30% of votes, falling to 27% and 22% in the AGM last month.
The company, which this week responded to criticism of its disclosure of commercial management fees to Gore Street Capital, also said it would pay a further 1.5p per share special dividend from the latest proceeds received from the sale of investment tax credits for its Big Rock project in California. It cut its ordinary dividend from 4p to 3p in July.
In addition, it plans to sell the 22 MW / 29 MWh “Cremzow” asset in Germany bought in 2022 and has appointed advisers to sell the remaining sites in its 495MW pre-construction sub-portfolio that it promised in the strategic review that ended in August.
Shares in the international battery fund rose 1.4% to 52.9p, slightly narrowing their wide 50% discount to net asset value.
Our view
James Carthew, head of investment company research at QuotedData, said: “I’m pleased to see Gore Street sticking to its promise to deliver 3p of special dividends from its US tax credit receipts. Selling Cremzow will simplify the portfolio – which was one of RM’s demands. I cannot pretend that I am happy with the discount, but Gore Street now needs time to deliver on its promises.”
