Parkland Corp.’s largest shareholder plans to name Mark Davis, former CEO of chemicals company Chemtrade Logistics Income Fund, as interim CEO if its slate of board members is elected at the company’s annual meeting on May 6.
Simpson Oil says Davis, who will take over the top role by May 16 if its board slate gets approved, “has a history of providing significant strategic and value creation input while supporting proper and efficient corporate governance,” according to a presentation released earlier this month.
In addition to his 20 years as CEO of Chemtrade, Davis has held leadership roles with chemicals companies Marsulex and Sterling Pulp Chemicals. Simpson highlighted his experience with M&A and strategic reviews in these roles as reasons why he could make a good interim CEO while Parkland searches for its next leader.
In a presentation on Monday, Parkland rejected Davis as a future leader of the company, saying that “he has no substantive experience” in the fuel and convenience industries and has “a negative track record at a company with significantly less scale than Parkland.”
The ongoing disagreement comes at a time of turmoil for Parkland. The Canadian retail and fuel company — which operates about 200 c-stores in the U.S. — announced last week that President and CEO Bob Espey is stepping down from his role. Whoever wins control of the board will be in charge not only of finding Parkland’s next top executive, but will also pilot it through an ongoing strategic review, which is examining options like mergers, divestitures, acquisitions or a sale of the company.
Espey is expected to step down by Dec. 31, or as soon as the company either appoints a new CEO or completes the strategic review. If Simpson’s slate of board members is elected, that timeframe would be moved up considerably.
Simpson and Parkland have been taking pot shots at each other in recent months over board recommendations and strategy.
Parkland summed Simpson’s board slate up as “a mix of value destruction, lack of independence, bad governance and limited operational skills.”
Simpson, meanwhile, pointed to a number of “disjointed” acquisitions by Parkland and said its “lack of accountability for poorly implemented expansion into the United States shows change to the Board is needed.”
