I saw newChairman and went fantastic… then I realized just a deck chair shuffle …Also I personally think it is running very close to minority shareholder oppression and I have been templated to stir a noise, but that’s a mission for another day after I complete another advocacy activity I am doing.I know that is a big statement but let me lay out why I have this view and why I think this is a massive red flag, and why I think it is a narcissistic run company that is really a private company on the ASX pretending to public at the expense of minority share holders. I think the board needs to be held accountable by minority shareholders and the regulators.
Lets startat a very simple fact the CEO, the son of the previous CEO and founder Gerry (whoI did once actually respect… but not now).From what I have seen Luke the CEO has basically taken the company backwards and from what I have seen got zero reason to run the company, and he is paid a SIGNIFICANT salary and what I consider unusual benefits… During the time that the company has gone backwards significantly his package has gone up, it almost looks like the board is rubber stamping the siphoning of potential profits to the pockets of the CEO and founder.. which is smart over pay on base salary so shareholders get no profit.
Lets lookat the CEO salary in reality :
- Base USD 350Kplus $USD 42K 401k plus 33K medical … so over USD 425Kso over 600K AUD in BASE !!but wait there is more … Mobile telephone, car parking, motor vehicle lease, education expenses (until 22 Sep), executive health check, flights for family (yes you read that correctly – flights for family etc ) and other miscellaneous expenses
- But no need to do the maths look at the rem report he is paid 1.3Mthen his dad yep his dad is then paid $428K as a director (FYI other directors 30 to 85K). … So to help you if you look back at Gerry base salary when CEO it is the same as when he is now just a director but now he is also paying his son 1.3M in salary.So the Family is taking $1M plus in base and a lot more with incentives…
- So to help you understand why I think this is terrible …. Look at the entire profit of the company in multiple period (2019- 2023) or even (2015-2023) -- Gerry and Luke (Father and Son) salary for a single year exceeds the entire profit over any of the above periods .. Even more amazing there combined salary is basically 50% of CPT best year ever !!
- So if you stand back and look at what the board allows Gerry and Luke send to themselves in “Salary and benefits” so prior to shareholders seeing 1c is well over $1M and depending on measures $2M……Yes insane.
Now to really make any logical person upset lets compare this to Australia’s largest IT services business Data 3 (yes well over 2.5bn in revenue and makes more in a month then CPT does in several years)…. Did you know Luke Salary is HIGHER then the Data 3 CEO and Gerry the director salary is more then DOUBLE that of the Data 3 Chairman.While CPT has gone nowhere in growth (pick any of the periods) Data 3 has smashed it out of the water 300%+ since 2015 and 75% since 2019 and profits even more … CPT … well ZIP/Zero/None.
Sorry for the rant it is out of character for me but to me this is a disgrace and something ASIC should look at, and as a previous shareholder I encourage all minority shareholders to put this on ASIC radar, basically minority shareholders I personally believe we are being taken for a ride by the board (or in my case historically have been taken for a ride).
The above is all my personal view and I am very happy to be corrected if Ihave got any of the above facts wrong, and if I have will happily retract or correct any errors.But is what my analysis shows and I have been watching this company for a long long time and invested in it a few times hoping things would change and then started looking under the covers which made me believe this is just being run as a mechanism for the board to fund themselves and the founders family.
