Dive Brief:

• David Dickson, CEO of Houston-based energy contractor McDermott since 2013, has resigned. In an announcement on Monday, the company did not give a reason for the leadership change.
• Dickson led the company through a Chapter 11 bankruptcy last year that allowed it to shed $4.6 billion of debt and emerge with more than $2.9 billion in credit and loans.
• Lee McIntire, an independent director on the McDermott board since last July, has been named interim CEO.

Dive Insight:

With more than 35 years in construction engineering and executive experience, McIntire most recently served as CEO of Terrapower, a nuclear reactor design company founded by Microsoft head Bill Gates. 

From 2006 to 2014, he served as CEO of CH2M HILL, a global engineering services company. In that role, he doubled company revenue, grew the workforce to more than 30,000 and expanded the company's international presence, the release said.

Prior to joining CH2M HILL, McIntire was a partner and executive vice president and a member of the board of the Bechtel Corp. from 1989 to 2004. 

Under Dickson's leadership, McDermott's Chapter 11 reorganization included a comprehensive balance sheet restructuring that eliminated nearly all of the firm's $4.6 billion of funded debt and allowed the company to emerge with $2.4 billion credit capacity and $544 million of funded debt.

The plan that also included the sale of the company's Lummus Technology group to a joint partnership between Haldia Petrochemicals and Rhône Capital. Proceeds from the sale will repay the debtor-in-possession financing in full, as well as fund emergence costs and provide cash to the balance sheet for long-term liquidity.

Under the reorganization, which had the support of two-thirds of the firm's creditors, the company's suppliers were to be paid in full and operations have continued "in normal course," according to McDermott. There were between 50,000 and 100,000 creditors owed money by McDermott and its dozens of subsidiaries around the world, according to The Advocate newspaper. The largest was Kansas City, Missouri-based UMB Bank at $1.4 billion and dozens of contractors and subcontractors are each owed millions.

The proposal drew objections from some shareholders, who argued that it was unfair and imbalanced toward McDermott management, officers and directors. The shareholders, whose interests were wiped out under the proposed plan, argued that the proposal provides McDermott’s management with 7.5% of newly issued equity in the restructured company, while leaving the equity shareholders with nothing.