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Tidewater Inc. Taps New Chairman of the Board

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   |    Monday,November 04,2019

Tidewater Inc. reported that Mr. Larry T. Rigdon has been elected Chairman of the Board of Tidewater Inc. effective October 28^th. Mr. Rigdon replaces Dr. Thomas R. Bates, Jr., who has recently resigned from the board.

About Rigdon

Mr. Rigdon has been a member of the Tidewater Board of Directors since August 2017. He has extensive prior experience as an executive at Tidewater. Mr. Rigdon served as Interim Chief Executive Officer of Tidewater for the five-month period ended March 2018 and had previously joined the Company in 1992 upon the merger with Zapata Gulf Marine Corporation. After successive roles of increasing responsibility, he left the Company as Executive Vice President in 2002. He then successfully founded and grew Rigdon Marine Corporation to an owner of 28 offshore service vessels, selling the company in June 2008 to GulfMark Offshore, Inc. (“GulfMark”), where he became a board member thereof until 2010. Mr. Rigdon also currently serves as a director of Professional Rental Tools, LLC.

Coincident with the merger of Tidewater and GulfMark in 2018, the Tidewater board was expanded from seven to ten members. Since then, the board has been in a process of determining its optimal size and composition. The board determined that operational efficiency is a key success factor for the Company as it addresses long-standing challenges facing the OSV industry and executes on the opportunities afforded the industry’s best-capitalized and leading global operator. In this regard, the board is committed to lead by example and will “do more with less”. The board believes a smaller board will not only be more cost-effective, but will enable the board to be more responsive and efficient as it advances the Company’s strategic goals. Accordingly, the board committed to a reduction in its size to seven members at the next annual meeting of stockholders.

Board Size Reduced

Additionally, the Company announces that the size of the board has been reduced from ten to eight members effective immediately. The immediate reduction in board size is the result of the resignation of Dr. Thomas R. Bates, Jr. and Mr. Steven L. Newman. These resignations were not the result of any known disagreements between the resigning directors and management or the board of Tidewater.

In connection with these changes, the board has appointed, effective immediately, Ms. Randee E. Day to be Chairwoman of the Nominating & Governance Committee, Mr. Louis A. Raspino to be Chairman of the Compensation Committee, and has confirmed Mr. Dick H. Fagerstal as Chairman of the Audit Committee.

The seven directors that the Tidewater board intends to nominate for election at the 2020 annual meeting of stockholders are: Randee E. Day, Dick H. Fagerstal, Quintin V. Kneen, Louis A. Raspino, Larry T. Rigdon, Robert P. Tamburino and Kenneth H. Traub.