Crescent Point Energy Corp (CPG.TO) CEO Scott Saxberg issued a firm denial when asked whether activist interest was behind a recent share price surge.
“We always welcome feedback and engagement with our shareholders – we have not, in our entire history, ever been approached by an activist and that is all I can say about that,” Saxberg said in a conference call discussing the company’s quarterly earnings on Thursday.
Crescent Point shares surged as much as 7.7 per cent last Friday, amid a report from the newsletter DealReporter that a U.S. activist had the company on its radar.
Prominent M&A lawyer Walied Soliman also told BNN Wednesday that he didn’t think there was anything to the claims.
“I think it’s been a total echo chamber, people talking at each other. I’ve seen zero evidence of anything real happening there,” Soliman told BNN.
Crescent Point reported a bigger quarterly loss from a year earlier, mainly hurt by one-time charges of about $457 million.
The oil and gas producer's net loss widened to $510.6 million, or 94 Canadian cents per share, in the fourth quarter ended Dec. 31, from $382.4 million, or 76 cents per share, a year earlier.
The quarter also included an unrealized loss on derivatives of $138.7 million. Crescent recorded one-time charges of about $589.4 million in the year ago quarter.
Total average production fell 6.3 per cent to 165,097 barrels of oil equivalent per day in the quarter.
- With files from Reuters
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