Just a fortnight into 2024 and it has already been an impressively awful year for corporate blunders.
Bosses or former bosses thrust into the spotlight include Paula Vennells of the Post Office, Sebastien de Montessus of Endeavour Mining and NatWest chairman Howard Davies.
AGM season is a way off but proxy adviser Pirc has already got a number of executives in its sights.
It is considering whether to back the re-election of the bosses of Airbnb, Alphabet, BNP Paribas, British American Tobacco (over a fine in Nigeria), Meta and Boeing.
Pirc is known for taking a harder line with its recommendations to investors than fellow advisers Glass Lewis and ISS.
Corporate blunders: AGM season is a way off but proxy adviser Pirc has already got a number of executives in its sights
But perhaps Pirc should be given more heed.
As it recently pointed out, in 2020 it expressed ‘serious concerns’ about Vennells’ suitability to serve as a director at Dunelm in light of the Post Office scandal, adding: ‘Worryingly the 2020 AGM results suggest only a small minority of shareholders felt so too.’
Change of fortunes for Yorkshire mine?
Things could be looking up for Anglo American’s potash mine in Yorkshire.
It has sunk £2 billion into the project since buying it in 2020 from Sirius Minerals.
Up the road, Israeli group ICL’s Boulby mine switched to digging the same sort of potash that Anglo will produce.
Accounts at Companies House show its turnover reached £193 million in 2022.
It even unearthed a profit, turning a loss of £31 million in 2021 into a £26 million gain.
Revolut still putting the cart before the horse
One would expect Revolut to have learned the peril of putting the cart before the horse when it boasted about being on the brink of receiving a UK banking licence which has, er, still not arrived.
Almost a year later, Revolut’s deputy chief executive Andrius Biceika was let loose in an interview with the tech website Wired.
In it he said the development of artificial intelligence bankers, with whom punters could discuss finances, was ‘inevitable’.
But beyond AI, he says Revolut has already opened five in-person outlets in Europe and is going to ‘launch branches in every country in Europe and eventually every country in the world’, adding: ‘The sky is the limit.’
Promises, promises.
TDR Capital try to reassure MPs
It was squeaky bum time last week for Asda co-owner TDR Capital.
The private equity firm’s boss Gary Lindsay tried to reassure MPs about the £6.8 billion deal backed by the Issa brothers, Mohsin and Zuber, that saddled Asda with huge debt.
Lindsay said Mohsin was ‘not pleased and not proud’ of failing to answer MPs’ basic questions.
The buyout baron then pledged to make Asda’s myriad accounts, filed in Jersey, more transparent.
But he forgot to tell MPs that he and fellow TDR director Manjit Dale had quit three Asda units before Christmas. So much for full disclosure’.
Contributor: Patrick Tooher
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