Vital property trust finds a director
AUCKLAND: Vital Healthcare Property Trust has finally found a socalled independent director, Graham Stuart, who was Sealord’s chief executive until 2014 and before that Fonterra’s chief financial officer for seven years.
Vital’s manager, Canadabased NorthWest Healthcare Properties, has been looking for somebody to replace former chairman Graeme Horsley since he resigned in early May.
Mr Stuart is currently chairman of Eroad and an independent director and chairs Tower’s audit committee.
Chairwoman Claire Higgins said Mr Stuart’s appointment followed a comprehensive search helped by international recruitment firm Heidrick & Struggles which canvassed ‘‘a broad field of candidates,’’ including a number put forward by investment institutions in New Zealand.
‘‘We have welcomed the opportunity to engage with interested unit holders in this context and, in particular, their willingness to put forward potential candidates ahead of the formal nominations process,’’ Ms Higgins said.
While the press release says Mr Stuart will be independent, Vital’s trust deed gives NorthWest the right to fire directors at will for any or no reason.
While this is at odds with the NZX listing rules, NZX granted Vital’s previous manager, ING, a waiver from those listing rules in November 2007.
BusinessDesk is aware of at least one candidate who pulled out of the running because they would not in fact be independent.
The press release says Mr Stuart’s appointment has NorthWest’s support; NorthWest owns nearly 25% of Vital’s units.
‘‘The board is very pleased to have completed the appointment of an independent director with such outstanding governance and commercial skills,’’ Ms Higgins says.
‘‘Vital has been a strong and consistent performer over the past decade with unit holder returns comfortably exceeding the total sharemarket and peer group indices over that period.’’
While it is true the units have performed well over the long term, over the past year they have fallen more than 5% while the benchmark NZX 50 Index gained nearly 12%.
‘‘We are confident that Graham will play an important role in our drive to maintain a high level of performance into the future.’’
Ms Higgins says the appointment fulfils the board’s undertaking to make such an appointment before the next annual meeting of unit holders.
NorthWest has not set the date for that meeting yet — last year’s annual meeting was held on November 9 — but now says the deadline for unit holders to nominate a person for election as an independent director is November 26.
Given Mr Stuart’s appointment, ‘‘any nominations received will result in a contested election. In that event, NorthWest . . . will vote its Vital units in favour of Mr Stuart.’’
Vital Healthcare traded down 0.5% —BusinessDesk units last
at $2.08.