Finance chief quits as Stobart holds stormy vote on chairman

STOBART Group’s finance boss stepped down before a stormy shareholder meeting yesterday where the bitter row between the board and former chief executive Andrew Tinkler finally came to a head.

Investors were told last night that the results of the crucial vote on the fate of its chairman, Iain Ferguson, were too close to call and they would have to wait for a recount today. In the run-up to the shareholder meeting, Stobart, which owns Southend Airport, announced that finance boss Richard Laycock was stepping down after five months in the top role but did not give a reason why.

A Stobart Group spokesman said the delay in revealing the results of the meeting was “not the company’s call. The count is being handled by an independent registrar. There are lots of different types of votes being counted – those who attended putting their hands up, proxy votes, electronic voting etc.”

Attendees at the meeting at the St Pierre Park Hotel, Guernsey, described it as tense with a “flurry of tough questions” directed at Mr Ferguson.

One said that William Stobart, son of the company’s founder Eddie, stood up in the meeting and said: “I don’t recognise this board.” He was also said to have argued that his phone line had been “red hot” with calls from unhappy employees and claimed the board had damaged the brand. Mr Tinkler was sacked in June after he launched a boardroom coup to replace Mr Ferguson with the billionaire retail tycoon Philip Day. The row has split investors with Stobart’s second-largest shareholder Neil Woodford supporting Mr Tinkler and Invesco Perpetual, Stobart’s largest shareholder, expected to back management.

One person at yesterday’s meeting said Mr Ferguson dealt with the questions “calmly and coolly”.