Lew has list of Myer’s owners
DEPARTMENT store Myer has handed over its share register to lawyers acting for billionaire Solomon Lew’s Premier Investments.
The move fires the starter’s pistol on what could prove to be a bruising and public brawl as Mr Lew rallies fellow Myer shareholders to support him in ejecting its directors and appointing his own hand-picked nominees.
With the share register now in the hands of Premier Investments’ law firm, the influential Arnold Bloch Leibler, it can begin directly communicating with and lobbying the hundreds of thousands of Myer investors it will need to vote in their favour to tip out the board.
Mr Lew’s Premier Investments, which owns brands including Portmans, Just Jeans, Peter Alexander and Smiggle, first requested the share register from Myer on July 9.
Corporate regulations require a share register to be handed over within seven days of a formal request being made.
A spokesman for Myer was approached for comment on the matter but declined to comment or confirm if the share register had been handed over.
Mr Lew has been agitating for management and boardroom upheaval at Myer since Premier Investments first bought a 10.77 per cent stake in the department store in 2017, which came at a cost of about $101m.
When Premier Investments increased its stake to 15.77 per cent of Myer this month, the retailer’s acting chair JoAnne Stephenson extended an olive branch, offering board representation following years of
bitter conflict with the billionaire.
Mr Lew’s response was direct and crushed any hopes of peace talks: “Premier has nothing to gain from spending time with the members of the current Myer board.”
The billionaire retailer has fought a long-running and public war with the Myer boardroom.
Premier Investments successfully saw Myer chairman Garry Hounsell ejected from the board in October, just hours before Myer’s annual general meeting, as he won support for voting out the chairman from fund manager Geoff Wilson, who holds 7.8 per cent of Myer and is its second biggest shareholder after Mr Lew.
Now with the share register, Premier Investments can kickstart its campaign to unseat Myer’s remaining non-executive directors – acting chairman JoAnne Stephenson, David Whittle and Jacquie Naylor. Mr Lew has previously demanded they resign or be thrown out by shareholders.
Mr Lew is yet to unveil the nominees he would seek to put on the Myer board in their place.
The key debate within Mr Lew’s war room is whether to call the EGM for September to sweep out Myer directors or wait for Myer’s AGM in November, when he could eject the board.