Shareholder: Lew the man to reignite Myer
MYER’S second biggest shareholder, Wilson’s Asset Management, believes Solomon Lew lifting his stake in the department store and his determination to reignite value is a positive, branding the billionaire “one of the best retailers in the country”.
On Friday, Mr Lew sent his lawyers, Arnold Bloch Leibler, into Myer to access the company’s shareholder registers to marshal support to sack the entire board.
He has been agitating for a boardroom revolution for the
past two years and this week declared he was now in a position to seek such change after he increased his stake in Myer to 15.77 per cent, via his Premier Investments.
But Myer has bridled at Mr
Lew’s request to access its shareholder register.
“We do not believe it is in shareholders’ best interests to allow Premier Investments to take or exert control of Myer without shareholders realising an appropriate premium and appropriate value for this effective change of control.”
Premier secured an 11 per cent stake in Myer, at $1.15 a share, in 2018, becoming the company’s biggest shareholder. Since then, Mr Lew says $760m or 71 per cent of “shareholder wealth” had been “destroyed”. Earlier this week he bought another 5 per cent of the department store, at 40c a share. In the same period, Premier Investments share price has nearly doubled to $27. That’s why Wilson Asset Management sees Premier – which owns Smiggle, Peter Alexander, Just Jeans – as a positive force.
Wilson Asset Management lead portfolio manager Oscar Oberg said WAM supported Myer’s chief executive and the senior management team but believed the company was worth more than its current share price of around 45c.
“We think (they) have been doing a good job in a very tough environment. Now Solomon Lew and obviously Premier is one of the best retailers in the country, if not the best, and we think they can assist given their experience and expertise in the sector,” he said. “It’s positive that Solomon and Premier see value. And like us, we don’t think it’s worth 45 cents, which was what I think it is today. We think it’s worth a lot more.”
Mr Lew intends to call an extraordinary meeting to allow shareholders a chance to vote on the composition of Myer’s current board and the department store’s future.