As for the last para about chairman announcement I don't understand anything about the reasoning, so no comment on that bit for me
It is now near the end of March and Gavin announced at the AGM that he intended to go in May. We also got advised of two new Directors plus elevating Dirk to the Board. I'd have to check the wording but I had an expectation that one of those new Australian based Directors was mostly a Chair in waiting.
Now while "May" could mean either the start of the end of the month the announcement was made so far ahead of time I'd have thought it reasonable to believe that it was more likely to be earlier rather than later
It would most likely take around a week after a Board meeting for an announcement to get out to the market. So follow the timeline - if Gavin goes earlier in May the market would barely have been told if the decision is made in April.
Further why would you wait? If you think it necessary to announce nearly six months out you are going what do you gain if you don't advise the market who will be stepping into your shoes?
Surely the Board knows by now which of those Directors they took so long to find (remember this process was supposedly started after Gandar-Smith resigned at the start of 2017) is good enough to replace the Chair. Surely it is helpful to provide certainty to the market that succession is secure. That's what a good, well governed Board would do.
On which point of course it's worth remembering that a Chairman is technically nominated and voted in by the other Directors. It's not a statutorily prescribed role and nor should the chairman get to choose their replacement on his own.
So if Alexium is to get a new Chairman in May I'd expect the Board to be discussing it at this Board meeting with an announcement made by early April. I wouldn't expect them to leave an announcement to early May. To me that would not look like an orderly and well planned transition.
Actually it would look worse to me. It might suggest that neither of those new directors was shaping up to be an obvious successor - bad move. Or that Gavin was planning to hold on for as long as possible - bad move after two strikes and announcing his retirement presumably as a sop to the market. Or that he was planning to change his mind and find a reason to stay hence the long notice period and the lack of specificity on the timing.
I have no idea which of these scenarios - including the possibility that my imagination is being overly active - is most likely to play out but I'm sure watching. Never did throw out those papers I put together just I case I wanted to take further action.
Mind you if I were one of the new directors and believed a board should do what it says it's going to do I'd be just that little bit cheesed off if that didn't happen. But then they haven't been around long enough to notice that Alexium has a bit of a tendency that way
Anyway just watching....
Did that explain my reasoning?
Parsifal
AJX Price at posting:
28.0¢ Sentiment: None Disclosure: Held
