Independent directors exit as investors flee OGX Three of OGX's five independent board members, including the country's former finance minister Pedro Malan, have left Eike Batista's oil producer as investors flee the company. Pedro Malan, Rodolpho Tourinho Neto, a former mining minister, and Ellen Gracie Northfleet, a former Supreme Court judge, are no longer members of OGX's board, the Rio de Janeiro-based company said on Friday. It did not give the reason for their departures. The announcement comes at a particularly sensitive time for OGX, whose shares have slumped about 96 per cent to R$0.83 since their peak in October 2010. The stock was down about 5 per cent on Friday after the departures were announced. A series of production disappointments at OGX have prompted a crisis of confidence across Mr Batista's business empire, which extends from mining to a Chinese restaurant, threatening to starve his companies of cash. Pedro Galdi, an analyst at SLW Corretora in São Paulo, said the departure of three of the company's most high-profile independent directors could be related to cost-cutting measures. He's been trying to sell off parts of his companies to raise capital, rolling forward debt and postponing investments, the latter of which may be dangerous because otherwise how can you improve production? Mr Galdi said. The departure of the three OGX board members also raises further questions over a closely watched $1bn lifeline Mr Batista promised the start-up last year. Under the agreement signed last October, the Brazilian billionaire promised to buy up to $1bn worth of OGX shares by April 30 next year at R$6.30 each, essentially a form of "insurance" for investors buying the stock. However, the decision to exercise the option will be determined by the majority of the independent board members, who will weigh up the company's "additional capital requirement and the absence of more favourable alternatives," according to the original agreement. Unless other board members are hired, this decision will now be in the hands of the company's only two remaining independent board directors: Samir Zraick and Luiz do Amaral de França Pereira. The $1bn cash injection, which analysts have said is vital to prop up the company, already came into question last week when a regulatory filing showed Mr Batista had sold about $57m of his own OGX shares last month. He sold the stock at prices between R$1.57 and R$1.85, raising questions over why he would buy back another $1bn in shares at over three times the price.