OREANDA-NEWS. Worldview Capital Management ("Worldview"), an investment management group which holds more than 28% of the share capital in Petroceltic International Plc ("Petroceltic" or the "Company"), notes Petroceltic's latest announcement regarding the award of nil-cost options to the Company's executive team, including Chief Executive Officer Brian O'Cathain. It believes the awards are wholly inappropriate and calls for an independent investigation into their merit.

Worldview cannot see how these awards can possibly be justified in light of the Company's recent track record of failure under the management of Mr O'Cathain. We note in particular the Company's dismal exploration drilling performance and the contentious \\$100 million placing, as well as, in our view, management's apparent ineptitude in handling the potential offer from Dragon Oil. This poor performance, coupled with corporate governance failures already highlighted by Worldview, has already prompted us, as the Company's largest shareholder, to call for Mr O'Cathain's resignation. Yet the Company still saw fit to sanction these awards.

To add insult to injury for shareholders, we note that the exercise price for the options was set based on depressed recent market price after management failed to complete the deal with Dragon Oil. This fortuitous exercise price appears to have effectively rewarded Mr O'Cathain and his fellow executives twice over - with the additional windfall for a failed transaction on top of the, in our view unjustified, approval of the awards in the first place. We believe this represents an abuse of shareholder trust, let alone poor corporate governance, which yet again brings the Company's leadership into question. 

The 127.20 exercise price (tied to the average market price for only the five business days prior to the announcement of the award) ignores the fact that the Company's average share price was 168.75p during the month of September 2014 when, according to the Company's announcement, these options were initially approved - some 33% higher than the exercise price.

Worldview simply cannot condone a culture of reward for failure at the Company and continues to reserve its position on what action it may take to instil proper governance at the Company in the interests of all shareholders.

Worldview reiterates its lack of support for the Company's current management and again calls for Mr O'Cathain to resign.  We believe that the current remuneration packages of senior executives are already too high in light of their track record of underperformance and that no further share option awards should have been made. We insist on a fully independent investigation of these share awards at Petroceltic.