The same info as the West Australian article I posted yesterday, except different photos.
Quintis ex-CEO plots coup
Formula One star Daniel Ricciardo, left, with Frank Wils
Former Quintis chief executive Frank Wilson is looking to return to the troubled sandalwood plantation group as part of a plan to get rid of the company’s top brass.
A group of shareholders including Mr Wilson, who owns about 12.5 per cent of the company, yesterday announced they had requisitioned a meeting to tip out Quintis chairman Dalton Gooding, chief executive Julius Matthys and non-executive director John Groppoli and replace them with their own nominees.
If the move is successful, Mr Wilson “will rejoin the company in a sales and marketing capacity for plantations and end product sales,” the group said yesterday.
Quintis has been suspended from the ASX since May last year after its share price tumbled following the release in March of a report by short-sellers Glaucus Research alleging the company had a “Ponzi-like” structure.
Mr Wilson resigned from Quintis in the wake of the Glaucus report, vowing to spearhead a takeover of the company with an unnamed partner.
He has yet to lodge a bid.
The group of shareholders of which he is a member have nominated property investor John Allen, avocado grower Craig Duncan and farmer Robert Boshammer to replace the directors they want sacked.
The only current member of the board they do not want removed is non-executive director Michael Kay, the former CEO of salary packaging company McMillan Shakespeare.
Mr Allen said the rebel group had support from investors in Quintis’s sandalwood managed investment schemes.
“Grower support is the backbone of Quintis and it is critical to the future success of the company,” he said.
“As shareholders of a quality company with an excellent market-ready product in high demand, we need a clear plan to move this business forward for the benefit of all shareholder and stakeholders.
“The time has come for Messrs Gooding, Matthys and Groppoli to realise that their plans have failed and for a new leadership group to step in and clean up the mess.”
The rebel group said there was “intense grower dissatisfaction” with Quintis among grower investors, with some moving to tip it out as manager of one of the MIS schemes.
Other “fundamental concerns” with the current board’s performance included its “woeful financial performance” since April, its failure to secure new agreements and its failure to recapitalise the company.
