Drake & Scull International (DSI) has announced the appointment of a new chairman and a new managing director for the company following a general assembly meeting on Saturday and a board meeting on Tuesday.

The company said that Abdullah Atatreh had been appointed as the new chairman of the company, with Mohammed Atatreh selected as the new managing director.

Existing independent board member Ahmed Saeed Al Hamiri has been appointed as vice-chairman of the company, and Abdulla Fareed Algurg has joined the board, following the departure of former chairman Majid Al Ghurair.

In a statement, DSI said that the board emphasised during its inaugural meeting on Tuesday that its top priority was the completion of its capital restructuring programme. The company has proposed a capital reduction that will see 75 percent of its shares cancelled, with a view to writing off more than 1.7 billion UAE dirhams ($463.8 million), following which Tabarak Investment will subscribe to 500 million new shares, making it the majority stakeholder.

Tabarak Investment is already the biggest single shareholder in the company, with a 10.39 percent stake, having bought out former vice-chairman Khaldoun Tabari's shares in June.

Chairman Abdulla Atatreh said: “The first official act of the new board of directors is to position the company for new growth by establishing and following strict governance standards across all operating sectors to ensure consistent transparency, control and quality.

"We have also strategically appointed people that embody our vision of renewed growth for DSI. We want to adopt the right corporate mindset to ensure the swift and efficient completion of the group’s turnaround strategy, which is currently in the final stages of the capital restructuring phase," he said.

"We assure our partners, customers and all our other stakeholders that we will steer the DSI towards new and exciting opportunities to advance the group’s industry leadership.”

It added that one of the board's immediate goals was making further executive appointments to support the company's turnaround strategy.

The statement also said that its board had "ratified a series of procedural decisions necessary for the company to conduct business as required".

A document filed with the Dubai Financial Market earlier this week showed that one of the decisions passed at its general assembly on Saturday was a special resolution deleting a clause from its articles of association governing compliance. The article prevented shareholders voting in matters that "related to a personal benefit or an existing dispute between such shareholder and the company".

DSI did not respond to a question from Zawya as to why the article was deleted.

© Zawya 2017