10% is reqd to call a GM in the UK. Is it 5% in Au?
How would a private investor go pulling together whatever % was needed. Most PIs don't even seem to know how to materialise their shares these days, let alone influence others who might feel the same way about an important issue and explain in a lucid way the resolution it was intended should be put forward and why it was felt a GM should be called. The chairman of any GM would invariably be sitting on enough proxies to outvote noisy minorities anyway, so all one can really do as a PI is to make one's views plain and hope other more powerful influencers take up the cause. It seldom happens although excessive remuneration sometimes draws tuts of disapproval from some IIs - but there aren't many left here.
As I said (or implied) in my post, I don't think now is necessarily the time to make big changes to the board anyway. When operations have stabilised and the corner has definitely been turned will be the time imv. One change that could be made (which would definitely be a positive) would be for Houghton to be appointed a director. I find it astonishing that an ASX group with a turnover of $1bn should not have a finance man (or woman) on the board. Anyone would think BH was reluctant to take up the appointment, what with all the talk of CAs doing the rounds and the company at one stage recently trading whilst close to insolvent. Playing both ends against the middle and taking a big bonus without having made the longer term commitment doesn't strike me as good practice.
I have a feeling SGH's management team may not be that talented (I base this on the overgeared state the company was in before the decision was made to bet the ranch on PSD - and of course on the way the integration appears to have been managed). Or indeed brave - you can't run a business successfully if you're constantly looking over your shoulder, worried about what might happen if you say or do something and it doesn't happen, or it does and it doesn't go completely as planned.
For some reason, spinning plates come to mind. "Over here - no over here - shoot, there's another one going down over there - hang on a minute.........".
It's called PIP (performance improvement planning) I think.
SGH Price at posting:
42.0¢ Sentiment: Hold Disclosure: Held
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