Ann: Termination of Employment of CEO, page-15

From the AFR yesterday afternoon:

Electricity CEO alleges board engineered share sale sacking

The chief executive of ASX-listed electricity company LPE who was sacked over share sales, furiously argues his dismissal was deliberately engineered amid a fight with his board.“I’ve got nothing to hide. I did nothing wrong, and they’re making me look like a bad person,” ousted LPE boss Damien Glanville told The Australian Financial Review.


Furious about dismissal: Damien Glanville, former CEO of LPE

“But hey, people that know me know [what] happened, and they (the board) were just being f---wits.”

Sunshine Coast-based LPE provides electricity services to strata-title residences, including installing and maintaining solar systems. Listed on the ASX, the company posted a $341,000 profit on revenue of $19.3 million in the December half, and its shares traded at 5¢ on Monday.

The directors terminated the position of Mr Glanville, who founded the business, “with immediate effect due to his failure to comply with LPE’s security trading policy”, according to the board’s statement to the ASX.

LPE chairman David Jarjoura refused to clarify the statement or respond to claims from Mr Glanville that the dismissal had been deliberately constructed. “I have no response to that. OK? Thank you,” he told the Financial Review.

Signs of a split were evident in February when several directors, including Mr Glanville, quit the board, citing “prolonged disharmony”.

Mr Glanville said he had gone on stress leave, and needed to sell shares for family reasons. He said he had sought permission from the board about five times to sell shares around late March – maintaining there was no material information not already in the market.

“Because they’ve been trying to sack me for a while now, through different means, they just saw this as an opportunity to sack me under our trading policy,” he said.

Mr Glanville said the board withheld giving him permission or a rejection, instead saying they were unsure or were seeking advice, while also requesting personal information about his family situation that he said he was not obliged to provide.

“This went on for a week,” he said.

Mr Glanville ultimately sold 8.2 million shares to Melbourne investment fund River Capital, which also acquired other shares to accumulate an 18 per cent stake in late March. Mr Glanville argued the directors did not want to have another major shareholder.

He said the sale took place after the company had, in mid-March, called a shareholder meeting, set for later this month, to determine whether to award employees and directors unlisted options.

Author: Liam Walsh (Reporter)
Apr 15, 2024 – 3.54pm