Tulsa World: Tulsan named as SemGroup's new CFO

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Tulsan named as SemGroup's new CFO
Bob Fitzgerald will assume the post when the company exits Chapter 11 protection

By ROD WALTON, World Staff Writer
Published: 11/17/2009 12:21 PM
Last Modified: 11/17/2009 12:22 PM

SemGroup LP’s new chief financial officer will be a longtime Tulsan with deep experience in the energy, transportation and accounting fields, company officials announced Tuesday morning.

Bob Fitzgerald was selected after a month-long search for SemGroup’s second CFO in its nine-year history. He will assume the post when SemGroup emerges from Chapter 11 protection, probably this month.

“Bob brings more than 28 years of experience dealing with the kinds of sophisticated financial issues that will be critical to SemGroup as we become a publicly traded company,” presumptive CEO Norm Szydlowski said in a statement. “His background and talent will make him a tremendous addition to the SemGroup management team.”

Fitzgerald will join SemGroup after a year-long stint as CFO of Windsor Energy Group in Oklahoma City. Prior to that he worked for Broken Arrow transport firm LinkAmerica Corp., Arrow Trucking Co. of Tulsa, Williams Communications Group and the local PriceWaterhouseCoopers accounting offices.

He earned his undergraduate accounting degree at Western Illinois University and his Master’s of Finance at the University of Tulsa.

Fitzgerald’s hiring does not need court approval. SemGroup LP, which declared bankruptcy in July 2008 after amassing at least $2.4 billion in margin losses on failed oil futures trades, has gained court and creditor approval of its reorganization plan and hopes to emerge from Chapter as early as this week, according to reports.

SemGroup LP’s only other CFO in its history was co-founder Gregory Wallace, which resigned last year amid the company’s fiscal collapse. Wallace, along with co-founders Tom Kivisto and Kevin Foxx, started SemGroup in 2000 and quickly acquired other operations to build it into one of the nation’s fastest growing private firms, an oil, gas and asphalt storage and transport behemoth with billions in assets and annual revenues.

By late 2007 and early 2008, SemGroup was becoming cash-starved as the company’s short futures positions were devastated in oil’s historic runup to $147 per barrel. Critics later accused Wallace, Kivisto and Foxx of enriching themselves while the firm floundered, noting that the trio combined received more than $70 million in salary, bonuses and other compensation in the 12 months prior to SemGroup’s bankruptcy petition, according to reports.

By ROD WALTON, World Staff Writer

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Reader comments for this story have been moved to the most updated version of the story, now under the headline "SemGroup chooses new CFO," which was published on 11/18/2009. So far, 3 comments have been made.