Jeff Wood, the President and CFO of Black Stone Minerals (BSM), is leaving the company at the end of February. Evan Kiefer, currently VP, Finance and Investor Relations, will become interim CFO upon Mr. Wood’s departure.

BSM has its head office in downtown Houston and is one of the largest owners and managers of oil and gas mineral rights in the USA. It has a market capitalization of $3.5 billion.

Mr. Wood joined the company in 2016 and added the additional duties of President two years later. It is not clear why Mr. Wood is leaving. The company has been performing well. It tends to hedge a big percentage of its production. That makes sense as it is primarily held as a yield stock, but does come in for occasional criticism for leaving money on the table when oil and gas prices rise rapidly, like they did earlier in 2022.

The 8-K filed with the SEC states that the company and Mr. Wood will be negotiating a severance agreement. That’s interesting because Mr. Wood already has a severance agreement in place. That would pay him 1x base salary ($358,000), plus target annual bonus (100%) plus pro-rata bonus for the year of termination. Restricted stock would also vest under the current agreement.

Mr. Kiefer joined the company in October 2013 as an analyst and was promoted to VP two years ago.

SEC 8-K filing – CFO departure