News
Corp might have rejected the Crikey nomination to run for its board,
but our very good friends at Tasmanian tree-lopping giant Gunns Ltd
have done the decent thing and accepted the nomination. The following
was sitting on the fax machine on arriving home from Cairns yesterday:

Dear Mr Mayne,

I acknowledge receipt of your
nomination for election to the Board of Directors of Gunns Ltd and
confirm it is in accordance with the Company Constitution.

I will confirm the content of your supporting statement with you prior to finalisation of the notice of meeting.

The
2005 Annual General Meeting will be held on Thursday 27 October 2005 at
110 Lindsay Street, Launceston commencing at 10.30am.

Yours Sincerely

Wayne Chapman
Company Secretary
Gunns Ltd

Gunns
shares have been on the slide of late, so the AGM promises to be quite
interesting, especially given the proposed $1.1 billion pulp mill in
the Tamar Valley which presents considerable risks for shareholders.

It
is interesting that Gunns executive chairman John Gay chose not to head
off the Crikey tilt by accepting the compromise offer of himself
finally standing for election on the regular three year cycle.

With
Rupert Murdoch now gone from Australia, John Gay is the only prominent
executive chairman left who refuses to put himself up for re-election.
I’ll be standing for the Gunns board every year until Gay either
submits himself for election or appoints an independent, non-executive
chairman.

It will be interesting to see how he enjoys the first
contested election in the 18 year history of the company on the ASX.
Whilst Gay himself holds 5.19% of the shares, he’s only the fifth
largest player on the register so the result will be determined by the
four institutions listed below who collectively own 37% of the stock:

Perpetual Trustees: 14.19%
Concord Capital: 8.62%
Deutsche Bank: 8.23%
AMP: 6.35%