The announcement by the BOD is indeed stunning. I Can't even...

The announcement by the BOD is indeed stunning. I Can't even remember a time where I read something about an 'untenable' relationship. Yet, there is code in the announcement:

"... The leadership transition presents an opportunity for Bapcor to install a
more contemporary leadership and management approach to drive the Company’s growth while also
ensuring consistent with changing stakeholders’ expectations, an appropriate governance and
oversight framework remains in place."

This is somewhat confirmed by noomx:

"Many investors were strong backers of Mr Abotomey’s robust and straight-talking approach which had delivered strong investment returns over many years."

So, it is fair to assume that the BOD does not appreciate the manners in which the outgoing CEO communicates either to them or management team and / or staff. Quite often, a CEO can get away with this as long as the performance is there. But here is the 'weak' spot when one looks at the 3 year SP performance relative to others:


BAP has under-performed ARB, SNL and NTD (random group in the automotive parts space; could have chosen others). Each of those companies have their own set of challenges and are therefore not 100% comparable. Whilst they are all different in their own way, 3 of them track each other, whilst BAP is not. Looking at the graphs, the un-coupling happened sometime in June last year.

The picture tells me, there is something 'brewing' at BAP for some time now. I suspect that the BOD thought that the CEO might be not the solution to closing the 'gap' in performance - since it opened up under his leadership. I would also suspect that this is not just about personality. It would be also, and more about strategy going forward, other changes to be implemented etc.

After being interested initially, I have gone 'cold' now. I will wait and see. I am not intent on diminishing a track record (which was undeniably fantastic for most of the time), but investing is about looking forward, and not looking backward.

All in my own reasoning and speculation.

GLTAH