Fresh from setting a record when it came to sacking female directors after the 2008 Just Group takeover, billionaire rag trader Solomon Lew today has further risked his reputation with women by appointing disgraced former David Jones boss Mark McInnes as CEO of Premier Retail.
The announcement was buried on page 21 of this morning’s Premier Investments results presentation that was brought forward after a board meeting last night that saw the incumbent CEO, former Just Group managing director Jason Murray, instantly sacked.
Murray has been executed after delivering flat sales and a 13% profit drop. The disastrous campaign for a new online shopping tax may also have been a factor. The market liked the news, sending Premier shares up 3% in morning trade.
Premier chairman and controlling 42% shareholder Solomon Lew has long been a controversial figure, most notably courtesy of the Yannon scandal in the mid-1990s, which forced him to stand down as Coles Myer chairman.
He was eventually voted off the Coles Myer board altogether in 2002 after the biggest board proxy fight in Australian corporate history.
Lew, 66, took a low profile for the next five years, not even sitting on the board of Premier Investments until he returned as non-executive chairman on March 31, 2008, the same day Premier launched its hostile $900 million bid for Just Group.
Just Group was a unique outfit because it was the first listed Australian company to have four female directors, a feat achieved in July 2007 when Susan Oliver was appointed to the board.
When Premier secured control in August 2008 after a contested takeover battle, the entire Just Group board was sacked in this terse two-paragraph statement.
While Alison Watkins had resigned a few months before the Premier bid, the three remaining female directors, Oliver, Bronwyn Constance and Laura Anderson, were all dismissed without a public word of thanks, as was chairman Ian Pollard and Ian Dahl.
More than two years later, Premier still hasn’t got a female director, even though the vast majority of its staff and customers are female. Two additional blokes, investment banker Tim Antonie and Simon Crean’s brother David Crean, were added to the board in December 2009 after what was claimed to be “an extensive and lengthy selection process“.
The other blokes on the seven man Premier Investment board including trucking billionaire Lindsay Fox, Arnold Bloch Leibler managing partner Henry Lanzer, Gary Weiss and Solly’s long-time accountant Frank Jones.
Joe Hockey was right to claim on Q&A earlier this month that it is incredible Australia still has 85 ASX200 companies with no female directors.
While you could make an exception for a few Perth-based mining companies, it is ridiculous that a female-focused company such as Premier Investments hasn’t got with the program and joined the likes of Newcrest, Alumina, Transurban, Ausenco, SP Ausnet and Asciano, which ended their all-blokes status by appointing solitary female directors over the past year.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Premier has no female directors because surely only a bunch of blokes could decide to hire Mark McInnes.
If Premier doesn’t appoint a female director in the next six months, then you can be assured that a female candidate will emerge at the 2011 AGM in October.
That said, the blokey board will now find it extremely hard work recruiting a new female director to sit around the table with McInnes after all the claims, publicity and litigation surrounding his exit from David Jones.
It should not be forgotten that McInnes admitted to conduct unbecoming, resigned as CEO, fled the country for a while and then contributed to the $850,000 payout to his victim, David Jones publicist Kristy Fraser-Kirk.
You have to wonder what the women who shop at Just Jeans, Portman, Jacqui E, Smiggle, Dotti, Peter Alexander and Jay Jays think about all this. Maybe Get-Up should get behind a boycott campaign by female shoppers. The targets in the Premier stable are reportedly about to get bigger with talk of an acquisition from the failing Colorado stable.
Solly Lew and his fellow directors have made a major statement hiring McInnes. There wasn’t even anything in today’s ASX releases about Premier’s sensitivity to the matter, although both Solly and McInnes were quoted on The World Today answering the obvious questions.
There will be plenty of issues to raise at the AGM, including what looks like an excessive salary package for McInnes of $2 million in base pay and a potential additional $3.2 million a year from short and long term incentive payments based on performance.
*Stephen Mayne is a small shareholder in Premier Investments and David Jones
The LAST place McInnes should be working is a 100% womens retail chain.
Just crazy of Lew.
Actually, you don’t have to wonder. I am a woman who shops at several of those stores and I think it’s appalling. I doubt they will see any blowback at a retail level though; people simply don’t associate parent companies with the stores’ brands enough for this to matter to the bottom line. Goes to show how cynical this appointment is.
And Mayne is right to tie this incident to the broader issue of women on boards. Next time you hear someone bemoaning the fact that women just aren’t willing to be on corporate boards, remember McInnes. Think about the kind of testosterone-poisoned, blokey culture that would make such an appointment seem like a good idea for even a second. And then wonder again why women don’t seem to make it to the top in any reasonable numbers.
How long before , Fev-like, McInnes starts the slip and slide. Sooo much temptation
This story moved me to register as a Crikey member, so that I could make a public comment on this issue.
I am completely outraged at the action by Solomon Lew. Firstly, for the sacking of the Premier Investment female board members, and secondly for his championing of McInnes as CEO. Lew’s disrespect of women is now openly apparent. This is coupled with the outrage that I feel because McInnes faces no censure in terms of his career for his appalling behaviour.
I – and my daughters – will no longer shop at these stores, and we will make sure no-one else we know does either. Yes, our actions are so minor they will probably not even be noticed in terms of the mass profits that Premier Investments earns. However, it will certainly make a difference to how we feel. Premier Investments and Solomon Lew may not have a conscience, but we certainly do!
I urge others to take the same action. Hmmmm – a groundswell on Facebook, anyone?
I read that McInnes says he is a changed man. During the DJ’s case, there were allegations reported in the media of a pattern of sexual harassment by him of female staff going back to his apprenticeship days at Black and Decker, so time will tell. Leopards and spots.
Now, if his reputed management style at DJs is to be emulated at Premier, then suppliers will be squeezed ruthlessly, staff benefits such as discounts (if any) will be curtailed, and his own bonus system will be greatly increased.