Endeavour Group owns the Dan Murphy’s liquor chain,BWS,and 354 hotels.
The move followsa fracture between Endeavour’s board,including chair Peter Hearl,and the company’s founders Mathieson snr,Roger Corbett and Bill Wavish,who built the company into the world’s largest poker machine operator.
At the company’s annual meeting in October,Mathieson snr,the company’s largest shareholder,with a 15.1 per cent stake,threatened to call for an extraordinary general meeting if Hearl continued to resist calls to resign after retail veteran Wavish failed in his bid to join the board.
Wavish,in running for the position,had said “urgent action must be taken to address a period of material mismanagement and gross underperformance” at the company:a sentiment shared by Mathieson snr. The majority (72.3 per cent) rejected Wavish’s election to the board and 12.7 per cent voted against the re-election of Mathieson Jnr.
The company’s underperformance is a point which both Mathieson snr’s troika and Endeavour’s board have agreed on. Shares in the company have dropped 35 per cent from their peak of $8.32 in August 2022,but traded 2.7 per cent higher on Wednesday following Endeavour’s announcement.
In the announcement,Endeavour said Hearl would retire once Mervis,who is chairman of Myer and McPherson’s,had obtained the necessary regulatory approvals,with the transition anticipated by the end of April.