Stobart chairman WILL quit

THE chairman of Stobart Group is to step down in the wake of a bitter row over the company’s future direction.

Iain Ferguson will be replaced within a year, the infrastructure group announced last night.

The 63-year-old has been the target of a campaign by former Stobart boss Andrew Tinkler and others, who wanted to replace him with retail tycoon Philip Day. Their efforts failed at a fraught annual general meeting on Friday when Ferguson was narrowly re-elected as chairman.

Tinkler was also elected to the board, but was sacked immediately afterwards.

Stobart’s board last night said it had launched a search for a chairman and one or more nonexecutive directors.

It said it would make the hires before the next AGM and at least one would be a woman.

The company, which owns Southend Airport, also said it would seek a replacement for former finance chief Richard Laycock and would investigate bullying allegations made by some managers who had reportedly backed Tinkler. Ferguson said: ‘ The last few weeks have been incredibly challenging.’

Yesterday Tinkler also accused Stobart’s bosses of gerrymandering the votes at its AGM. At the centre of his complaint is a decision to move 7m shares into an employee benefit trust where they could be used for votes.

Tinkler and his allies claim the move was suspect because the trust, headed by independent trustees, initially said they would abstain but later switched support to Ferguson. Stobart denies the movement of shares to the trust was connected to the vote.