This has been well canvassed, but there are still a number of posters stuck on the "informed the Chairman in July issue". To be clear, this is not something for which the Board or Chairman is culpable. You cannot trade shares while in possession of price sensitive information. This obligation does not change in any way just because you told someone it is your intention to do so.
The only excuse that GW could have provided to get him off the hook would have been to claim he had no visibility over the poor sales performance in the first 4 months of the financial year, and he didn't even try to do this.
Instead, the rationale and excuse provided by GW were pathetic and have been exposed as such. "To pay my taxes" translates to "I don't think that SRX's total shareholder return will exceed the bank interest borrowing rate" and "I told the Chairman in July" is as useful an excuse as a thief trying to excuse a theft by claiming that he told someone that it was his intention to take the item.
It's now been all but confirmed that he knowingly and deceptively took $28 from retirees and gave them $14. I'm surprised that anyone believes he's being treated harshly.
Its because GW (in his announcement to the ASX) exposed his extraordinarily weak arguments that SRX was able to terminate him with no severance pay and why ASIC will now investigate further. (Its also why I believe it was a waste of our money on lawyers, the Board had enough ammunition provided by GW).
The fact that GW informed the chairman of his intention to sell shares several months before the price sensitive information even emerged doesn't make the chairman or the Board responsible for GW's disregard for share trading rules.
It would be a mistake for shareholders to try to pin this on the Board or chairman, as (a) the action will fail and (b) it will distract us from the real performance issues.
Where the Board / Chairman have really failed
1. They have let management govern the company. Management has made SRX less and less transparent, and the Board has accepted these actions.
2. They have not held management to account for deteriorating performance. Ever since the release of SIRFLOX results, management has overseen the demise of US sales, the demise of Korean sales and an extremely poor return on the multi-million marketing spend.
3. They have deflected criticism of their own poor performance by taking credit for the strong product performance over the previous 5-6 years.
We need to concentrate on these issues and seek to remedy them with Board renewal.
SRX Price at posting:
$15.82 Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
