Collection House AGM: Lev Mizikovsky seeks to dump Leigh Berkley from board

ONE of Queensland’s biggest debt chasing agencies - the scene of a bloody shareholder meeting last year - faces more upheaval with the board warned of another potential high-profile execution.

• Collection House AGM turns into bloodbath
• CEO drops bonus, with a twist

DEBT chasing agency Collection House was the scene of Queensland’s bloodiest annual general meeting last year. This year, the board could face another high-profile execution.

Lev Mizikovsky, who owns almost 12 per cent of Collection House, plans to vote against any re-election of new chairman Leigh Berkley in November.

“I’m going to ask the shareholders to do the same,” Mr Mizikovsky told The Courier-Mail.

Mr Mizikovsky, the motorbike-loving founder of home-building outfit Tamawood, was a key agitator in a Collection House putsch last year. It triggered the extremely rare event of two directors — then chairman Kerry Daly and director Phil Hennessy — being dumped in a shareholder vote.

One of Mr Mizikovsky’s criticisms then was about spending and accounting for a new software system, and his ongoing public displeasure about that technology is now aimed at UK-based Mr Berkley.

Mr Berkley had conducted a review last year concluding the allocation of costs was well-controlled and oversight was good, according to Collection House filings with the stockmarket.

In a statement to The Courier-Mail, Mr Berkley reaffirmed that independent analysis has backed the accounting of the software. The technology was also proving useful with Collection House “wining new clients with our software product”, he said.

“Ongoing baseless assertions” about the software “seem to be nothing more than a smokescreen by Mr Mizikovsky to justify his call for further board changes, and to have his own nominees appointed”.

“Constant board change can be counter-productive,” he said.

Collection House has not yet released who will stand for re-election, but The Courier-Mail understands Mr Berkley is slated to be nominated. Even if not nominated, the whole board faces the threat of a spill and subsequent re-election process if the company’s remuneration report is rejected again this year.

Mr Berkley only last month told Collection House investors he would relocate from Britain to Australia as part of a show of commitment.

“The time is now right to make the move to be closer to our key markets in Australia and New Zealand,” Mr Berkley said.

Mr Mizikovsky said among positive things under Mr Berkley’s leadership was the appointment of two new directors, Sandra Birkensleigh and Catherine McDowell, whom he described as quality businesspeople.

Still, Mr Mizikovsky has also pushed for the election of two new directors at the upcoming AGM: Rade Dudurovic — a fellow director on Tamawood, and lawyer John Toigo — whose law firm ClarkeKann has previously done work for Mr Mizikovsky.

Mr Toigo said he had not himself worked for Mr Mizikovsky, and he had been “approached on the basis my experience at a number of different levels”. “I then considered whether I could add value at board level after my own enquiries,” Mr Toigo said.