Sounds like billionaire Sol Lew will effectively have a veto over who joins the Myer board as additional independent directors, even before he joins the board himself in April 2026. It’s just not right that he only owns 29% of the stock but selects 100% of the directors.

Amazed that Myer “lead independent director” Gary Weiss didn’t respond to this. Executive chair Olivia Wirth has no place leading the debate on issues related to independent directors.

Myer’s “lead independent director” Gary Weiss did 24yrs on Solly’s Premier Investments board. It took more than 2 minutes to spell out the full scale of Premier’s 7yr war against all of the now departed truly independent directors of Myer. What a joke to call Weiss independent!

Was expecting to hear the Lew-backed directors had brought in Sol’s old mate Lindsay Fox to sort out Myer’s logistical struggles with its new national distribution centre (NDC). Turns out Toll has the main gig plugging the big gaps in Sydney.

Asked if Lew family related party transactions with the expanded Myer Group were running at $25-$50m on an annualised basis, exec chair Olivia Wirth had nothing useful to say. How can a 29% shareholder who has hand picked this 4 person board not have his material RPTs disclosed?

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After ticking off David Kingston for going beyond 2 minutes with his opening contribution at the Myer AGM, Olivia Wirth went for about 3 minutes responding to his question defending the $800m+ Premier Retail acquisition. Here’s part of it. Interesting stuff.

Watch Myer executive chair Olivia Wirth attempt to shut down gun shareholder activist David Kingston just two minutes into his opening contribution at Thursday’s AGM. It didn’t work as he pushed back firmly, citing the Corporations Act.

Asked PwC partner Brad Peak if he could make related party transactions (mainly with Sol Lew) a key audit matter in next year’s Myer annual report. Exec chair Olivia Wirth commendably passed this 1 straight through to Brad, who was deputising for the PwC audit signing partner.

It was Clayton Utz which gave Myer the legal advice saying $20m+ in annualised related party transactions with largest shareholder Solomon Lew did not need to be disclosed in 2024-25. It will be public next year once Solly joins the Myer board in April 2026.

Opening question at the Myer AGM: “are we currently renting any properties off the Lew family?” Just the old Premier Retail head office, according to executive chair Olivia Wirth.

Can't remember a bigger public company leak than this one. And The AFR is really going to enjoy this after Kerry Stokes abused his power and effectively stopped The AFR being printed in Perth:

Lobbed these 5 written questions at yesterday's well-run 152 minute NAB hybrid AGM in Melbourne. The proxies were disclosed early with biggest protest 14% in favour of a hostile shareholder resolution on climate reporting:

Puzzled as to why bully boy Peter V'landys would go to the defamation lawyer who failed to get the job done for Bruce Lehrmann and Ben Roberts-Smith to try and intimidate 3 small racing industry publications? https://t.co/A2d0TGAJqY

An excellent explanation by Justin Quill:

If only Kerry Stokes had been kind enough to step up and assist with the legals:

This is an astonishing story by the @AFR based on years of leaked emails between Kerry Stokes and other Seven board members. 🤯🤯@Maxepmason @gbearup

How could 5 years worth of emails at the top of Seven West Media finish in the hands of rival Nine? Who had access? Reinforces the view that Bruce McWilliam is one of the loosest emailers corporate Australia has ever produced

Say what you like about Alan Joyce, at least he didn't sue to get his cancelled bonus re-instated:

Kerry Stokes has achieved many great things in his life. He climbed a mountain to become a mogul. But when he walks away from Seven West Media, in February, he’ll be stepping off a molehill. https://t.co/cKIj4OCh6x

Can't remember a bigger public company leak than this one. And The AFR is really going to enjoy this after Kerry Stokes abused his power and effectively stopped The AFR being printed in Perth: