The EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and Central Securities Depository Regulation (CSDR) were mentioned specifically as Flex LNG CEO Øystein Kalleklev, on Tuesday, presented his intention to delist his corporation from Euronext Oslo Børs. The company stays listed at the New York Stock Exchange, where the dominant part of the trade in its shares takes place.
News site Splash 247 is among outlets reporting on the delisting plan, presented at Flex LNG’s quarterly earnings presentation.
“Having to deal with two sorts of regulations, which is quite costly in terms of consultants, auditors, and such, and given the fact that 95% of our trading today is on the NYSE…we have decided to propose to the board to delist in Oslo and save that money and focus on one set of requirements instead of having to deal with two conflicting sets of reporting,” said Øystein Kalleklev, according to Splash 247’s news post.
He specifically mentioned the CSRD and CSDR frameworks as cost drivers, and was quoted by some paywalled sites as having slammed “EU regulatory insanity”. While not part of the European Union as such, Norway is a member of the European Economic Area, binding it to follow regulations underpinning the common market.
Flex LNG is a Norway-based sea transporter of liquid natural gas, owning and operating carriers. MarketWatch reports a market capitalisation of about 15 billion NOK (with a current exchange rate of 11.64 NOK to the euro as this article was published). It shows average daily trade in Oslo to encompass about 7 million NOK’s worth of its shares.
