The company put the shares in a trading halt yesterday, and announced that Ross Taylor would be reconsidering his position. Which says to me- he’s resigning tomorrow.
I can’t see a way for him to come out and say he’s not resigning after that statement’s been made.
And if he does go, which seems more likely than not, I doubt very much he’ll be alone. I suspect there will be other members of the executive - and maybe even the board - walking out that door with him.
And I don’t think anyone's gonna cry any tears over this. Fletcher Building is not a business that you can argue is doing right by its shareholders.
There have been calls for the board and the CEO to resign for at least two years, because the company just keeps lurching from one problem to the other.
There was the high rise disaster, then the convention centre disaster, then the GIB board disaster, then the pipes problem over in Australia, and then just last week- the $180 million cost blow out on the Convention Centre and the Wellington parking building.
As Sam Stubbs from Simplicity pointed out when he was on our show calling for the resignations last week- in the last two years, the NZX has gone up 7.5 percent and Fletcher Building’s shares have gone down 16.5 percent.
That’s not average performance, that’s a very bad performance.
Meanwhile, the directors asked for a 25 percent pay increase last year, until they got told that was a bad idea and withdrew it.
And Taylor, if you listen to the analysts, gets paid about three times what other CEOs of similar sized listed companies get paid.
There are significant shareholders who are pretty cross, and I don’t reckon they’ll settle for just Ross Taylor’s scalp tomorrow. I would expect not just one resignation.
Heather du Plessis-Allan is a journalist and commentator who hosts Newstalk ZB's Drive show.
1 comment:
The Aussie pipe problem is or should be a serious worry. Seems USA stopped using butylene decades ago as it is degraded by chlorine, which we use and in huge doses on occasions (also wrecks hot water cylinders). NZ houses built in the 1980s etc have suffered vast damage and expense from black Dux piping, to the extent that insurance companies often do not cover it. The firm has of course faded. Now we have a leak scandal in Oz. Just how many modern and replumbed houses are also going to prove disasters? We seem especially inept in NZ at anticpating problems. There was a time when such matters appeared in the msm but far too technical for the modern reporters who are more interested in matters pro maori.
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