hegarty denied golden handshake, page-5

From today's Sydney Morning Herald:

Fitted for size

It's useful in business to have a fleet pair of dancing feet.

Ask Peter Mansell, the chairman of West Australian Newspapers, and also the chairman of Zinifex before its nuptials with Oxiana. Earlier this year Seven owner Kerry Stokes tried a bear hug to get board representation on WAN after building a tidy stake in the publisher.

Mansell argued, among other things, that the five-man board was big enough.

Odd, then how Mansell scored a rather large negative vote for his appointment to the joint board of OZ Minerals (Oxiana plus Zinifex) that is going to have 11 board members.

We can only wonder if the sizeable protest vote had anything to do with the sentiments expressed by one shareholder at the meeting: "Recently Peter Mansell spoke very strongly against the recommendation of two directors of West Australian Newspapers. He argued if he put two outsiders on the board, that would change the balance of voting power. How can he in good conscious now be on a board of 11 when five was enough at WAN?"