OMV: Will Management Changes Lead to Strategy Shift?

Austria’s OMV Aktiengesellschaft announced today Gerhard Roiss would resign from his position as Chairman of the Executive Board and CEO as of June 30, 2015, well in advance of  the expiration of his contract in March 2017.

Under Mr. Roiss’ guidance, OMV has moved to a greater focus on toward more exploration and development including undertaking in 2013, a €2.65 billion acquisition of assets in Norway and the UK.  A process has been initiated the process to identify suitable candidates for the succession as CEO of OMV.

The Supervisory Board of Austria’s largest listed industrial company also announced the decision to integrate the business segment Gas and Power into the business segment Refining and Marketing, thereby creating a combined business segment Downstream headed by Executive Board member Manfred Leitner as of January 1, 2015. 

The Gas and Power segment has faced a challenging environment over the recent years and media reports indicated divisions over the future of gas business. OMV said that contract negotiations will commence with the current gas and power chief, Hans-Peter Floren.

Rudolf Kemler, Chairman of the Supervisory Board commented “OMV is in an exceptionally challenging situation at present. The environment in the core markets is fundamentally different to what the assumptions used when the strategy was setup in 2011. When further developing the corporate strategy, special focus shall be placed on increasing profitability and an optimized risk profile.”