The boardroom stoush at the country’s biggest paper business PaperlinX has been won by the challenger Andrew Price, with chairman Harry Boon resigning as chairman and non-executive director today.
Two non-executive directors, Lyndsey Cattermole and Anthony Clarke, have also resigned, all three will leave their posts on September 28. PaperlinX now has just two directors on the board, with Price and Mike McConnell.
Price, former owner of Stream Solutions, has been gunning for Boon since early in the year, but failed in an initial attempt to unseat him at an EGM in March. Price as a major shareholder was then offered a seat on the board, which he initially refused, but later took up.
In the period since the EGM in March Price had discussions with Harry Boon about returning the business to profitability.
Boon’s departure follows Toby Marchant who left his post as CEO last month, after a disastrous year for the paper merchant which saw PaperlinX more than double its financial year losses to $266.7m, a 147 per cent increase from the previous year’s loss of $108m. Under Marchant’s four year stewardship PaperlinX lost more than a billion dollars.
This year’s salutory loss, significantly increased from the $171m expected loss announced in June, comes primarily from the Board’s decision to write-off all remaining goodwill on its European operations.
When Boon became chairman in September 2011, the company’s share price was 11.5 cents, and has since slumped by virtually 50 per cent to a dismal 5.9 cents. Three years ago it was $3.
Total revenue at PaperlinX slipped to $4.11bn from $4.67bn the previous year due to weaker sales and negative translation impact arising from the strength of the Australian dollar.
Wayne Johnston, deputy chief financial officer and executive general manager corporate affairs, PaperlinX says, “PaperlinX will not be making any comments on the resignations, we expect to make further announcements about additional appointments to the board within two weeks.”
Andrew Tribute
