The 10 most sackable directors' club members
March 6, 2008
Dear Mayne Report subscribers,
as the credit crunch lays waste to the reputations of many, we've produced the following "most sackable" directors list:
Brian Healey: the long time Centro chairman has blown it and should just quit all his boards, especially Incitec Pivot. What sort of chairman presides over this mess and then simply disappears from public view without actually quitting?
Sam Kavourakis: the former funds management boss at National Mutual has blown it as the audit committee chairman at Centro. The committee only met twice in 2006-07 and managed to miss-classify $2.6 billion in short term debt.
Andrew Peacock: never really got into the club properly, but as chairman of MFS for the past 10 months, he's got to go.
Elizabeth Nosworthy: Labor-friendly Queensland lawyer who Richard Alston booted off the Telstra board and was associated with years of poor performance at David Jones. Major blunder has been as chair of the collapsing Commander Communications for the past five years. Also supposedly independent deputy chair of Babcock & Brown despite an earlier gig on the faltering Babcock & Brown Infrastructure and a supposedly independent spot on the GPT board, which is in the process of divorcing Babcock. Throw in plenty of government gigs in Queensland and we're talking too many commitments and too much poor performance.
Bob Mansfield: was axed as CEO of Fairfax and Optus and then later forced out as Telstra chairman. Failed as the public face of the Qantas private equity bid, didn't make the cut when Westfield did its big three way merger in 2004 and now won't even step up as the full-time chairman of Allco Finance Group in its hour of need. As the independent Allco director who fronted the disastrous Rubicon acquisition, his number is up.
Mark Rayner: ridiculous that he remains on any boards but the Alumina lunch-club still welcomes him in despite a woeful track record as chairman of Pasminco, Mayne Nickless and National Australia Bank.
Justin Gardiner: the only survivor from the HIH board despite being chairman of the audit committee. Remains on the Hutchison Telecommunications and Austar boards, the former being a huge black hole for shareholders, whilst the latter has turned around. A nice enough bloke, but just not a good look.
Margaret Jackson: whilst some sing her praises, she was chairman of the Pacific Dunlop and BHP audit committees during the late 1990s when billions were lost. Qantas did well on her watch operationally but she bungled the privatisation process and her latest chair, Flexigroup, has collapsed in a heap after the latest half year profit.
Rick Allert: the $1.5 billion Southcorp purchase of Rosemount was a major blunder during his chairmanship and then we had all that woeful under-performance whilst chairman of Coles. Time to retire as Axa chair.
Leo Tutt: the chairman who sold out MIM for a song to the Swiss giant Xstrata against the wishes of his CEO Vince Gauci has the cheek to still receive board fees as a director of Suncorp. The opportunity cost of the MIM sell-out is now north of $20 billion. Just disappear, son.
We've also updated this list ranking the top 30 female directors. Margaret Jackson is now out of the top 10 because of Flexigroup although at least she spent $503,000 this week averaging down her holding.
The chart buster is Professor Judith Sloan, who I thought was on the way out with the Howard Government. Alas, Frank Lowy has added her to the Westfield board.
Don't click through as that's it for today.
Do ya best, Stephen Mayne
as the credit crunch lays waste to the reputations of many, we've produced the following "most sackable" directors list:
Brian Healey: the long time Centro chairman has blown it and should just quit all his boards, especially Incitec Pivot. What sort of chairman presides over this mess and then simply disappears from public view without actually quitting?
Sam Kavourakis: the former funds management boss at National Mutual has blown it as the audit committee chairman at Centro. The committee only met twice in 2006-07 and managed to miss-classify $2.6 billion in short term debt.
Andrew Peacock: never really got into the club properly, but as chairman of MFS for the past 10 months, he's got to go.
Elizabeth Nosworthy: Labor-friendly Queensland lawyer who Richard Alston booted off the Telstra board and was associated with years of poor performance at David Jones. Major blunder has been as chair of the collapsing Commander Communications for the past five years. Also supposedly independent deputy chair of Babcock & Brown despite an earlier gig on the faltering Babcock & Brown Infrastructure and a supposedly independent spot on the GPT board, which is in the process of divorcing Babcock. Throw in plenty of government gigs in Queensland and we're talking too many commitments and too much poor performance.
Bob Mansfield: was axed as CEO of Fairfax and Optus and then later forced out as Telstra chairman. Failed as the public face of the Qantas private equity bid, didn't make the cut when Westfield did its big three way merger in 2004 and now won't even step up as the full-time chairman of Allco Finance Group in its hour of need. As the independent Allco director who fronted the disastrous Rubicon acquisition, his number is up.
Mark Rayner: ridiculous that he remains on any boards but the Alumina lunch-club still welcomes him in despite a woeful track record as chairman of Pasminco, Mayne Nickless and National Australia Bank.
Justin Gardiner: the only survivor from the HIH board despite being chairman of the audit committee. Remains on the Hutchison Telecommunications and Austar boards, the former being a huge black hole for shareholders, whilst the latter has turned around. A nice enough bloke, but just not a good look.
Margaret Jackson: whilst some sing her praises, she was chairman of the Pacific Dunlop and BHP audit committees during the late 1990s when billions were lost. Qantas did well on her watch operationally but she bungled the privatisation process and her latest chair, Flexigroup, has collapsed in a heap after the latest half year profit.
Rick Allert: the $1.5 billion Southcorp purchase of Rosemount was a major blunder during his chairmanship and then we had all that woeful under-performance whilst chairman of Coles. Time to retire as Axa chair.
Leo Tutt: the chairman who sold out MIM for a song to the Swiss giant Xstrata against the wishes of his CEO Vince Gauci has the cheek to still receive board fees as a director of Suncorp. The opportunity cost of the MIM sell-out is now north of $20 billion. Just disappear, son.
We've also updated this list ranking the top 30 female directors. Margaret Jackson is now out of the top 10 because of Flexigroup although at least she spent $503,000 this week averaging down her holding.
The chart buster is Professor Judith Sloan, who I thought was on the way out with the Howard Government. Alas, Frank Lowy has added her to the Westfield board.
Don't click through as that's it for today.
Do ya best, Stephen Mayne