Greek shipping tycoon George Economou has backed out of his proxy fight against Genco Shipping & Trading and pulled back his nominee to the US-listed bulker owner’s board. Economou’s investment vehicle, GK Investor, said in a filing Thursday it had withdrawn the nomination of Robert Pons as a candidate for election to the Genco board, as well as a proposal to repeal the company’s bylaws. Economou’s position in the Manhattan-based Genco was flagged at the end of December last year when he picked up about a 5.4% stake in the owner of more than 40 bulkers. Shortly after, he nominated two candidates to the Genco board, including Pons, who serves as president and chief executive at telecom and technology management consultancy Spartan Advisors and has also served on the boards of directors of about 16 publicly traded companies. Genco rejected the nominees, saying that their additions would not be in the best interest of the company or its shareholders. Economou described Genco’s actions as “hostile and evasive” and filed a proxy in April to nominate Pons to the board and called for the removal of Genco chairman James Dolphin, who has been on the board for 10 years. Genco has been campaigning strongly against Economou’s proposal, saying it was “self-serving” and even setting up a “VoteForGenco” website where it cautions shareholders against the Greek owner’s history of “capital allocation mixed with conflicts of interest, self-dealing and shareholder value destruction for personal gain”. In its latest filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), GK thanked Pons for his “tireless efforts as its nominee and willingness to represent the best interests of all shareholders, despite being subject to baseless personal attacks from Genco’s board”. Meanwhile, Economou has been selling out of Genco at a profit, disposing of more than half of its stake since April. His GK noted that since buying into Genco, the company’s stock went from $16.48 to its most recent closing price of $22.53. “GK believes that its advocacy has contributed to the improved performance of Genco’s common stock – thereby providing an attractive return to shareholders, including GK,” the company said in a filing, adding that it believes its efforts were a main driver behind Genco’s move to focus on capital allocation, reduce its discount to NAV and add a new voice in the boardroom. Despite backing down, Economou stressed that he intends to continue to closely monitor Genco and the actions of its current chairman and board, and to continue to hold them accountable. In a statement, Genco said the company was pleased that Economou had withdrawn from the proxy fight that he started. “We note that to the very end, Economou continued to disseminate statements about Genco, our board and our performance that we believe are inaccurate… “We believe Economou’s primary impact on Genco was diverting time and resources, from our continued execution of our comprehensive value strategy that predates his share purchases and subsequent sales,” the company said. googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-1_95_0_1_2'); }); TagsGenco Shipping Greece United States