The MYR Chairman cops a blast in today's 'The Australian' re allegedly spending too much time at her retail shop in trendy, leftie Daylesford, Victoria:

Myer chair JoAnne Stephenson keeps shop at odd times

Spotted during the madness of the Black Friday sales was none other than Myer chair JoAnne Stephenson behind the counter of her homewares store eCasa, a quaint little boutique located among the sylvan beauty of regional Victoria.

That’s certainly a distance from the nearest Myer, which is where we expected the chair to be devoting her attention.

Donning a red apron and armed with a scanning gun, Stephenson appeared to be enjoying a roaring trade of tea towels and enamel dishes during one of the most important weekends on the retail calendar.

And by that we mean for Myer and its shareholders – not Stephenson’s personal endeavours. Priorities!

JoAnne Stephenson at her eCasa store.

When only 56 per cent of shareholders back your return to the board it behoves oneself to act in accordance with expectations. It’s the optics, stupid.

Would it not be more appropriate for Stephenson to have walked the floors of her department stores, kept an eye on staff, engaged with customers and reconnoitre the competition at David Jones?

Not when there are tea lights and mini napkins to flog.

And to think Stephenson is planning to sermonise on conflicts of interest at the next board meeting, Myer’s first with its newly appointed director Terry McCartney. His nomination prompted a great hand-wringing because it was put up by major shareholder Premier Investments, an occasional competitor outfit owned by retailing billionaire Solomon Lew.

But as this column has already reported, the conflicts on the Myer board are as common as house dust, and predate the arrival of McCartney.

Premier Investments doesn’t hold any concessions in Myer stores but Cambridge Clothing has 17 of them; its non-executive director, Jacqui Naylor, is a Myer director but no one minds. But at least Naylor’s conflict is there for shareholders to see on Myer’s website.

Stephenson’s own retail enterprise, however, remains something of a secret. Nary a word about this retail play was mentioned in Myer’s 2017 Notice of Meeting, when Stephenson was elected to the board, nor in 2019 when she ran for re-election.

Granted, there was less hysteria around conflicts of interest during these earlier tilts; the issue only became a problem once McCartney was nominated.

And yet, even with such heightened levels of scrutiny being levelled at McCartney, there was still no mention of Stephenson’s ownership of eCasa in the pages of this year’s Notice of Meeting either. Apparently the board has known about it for some time, even if shareholders haven’t had a clue.

A Myer spokeswoman said: “It was declared when JoAnne joined the board, and given its scale, it was dismissed as being entirely immaterial. It’s a nonsense to drag it into the current conflict debate.”

Well, not when the Myer board has been suffering from its own collective derangement over conflicts of interest, and applying such double-standards to its own NEDs.