The giant $300bn AustralianSuper will meet with Bill Wavish as it enters the Endeavour civil war

The $300bn superannuation fund, also Endeavour’s third largest shareholder, will this week meet with rebel director candidate Bill Wavish ahead of its kingmaker position at the AGM.

Former Myer chairman and Woolworths boss Bill Wavish will meet with AustralianSuper this week.

The nation’s largest superannuation fund, the $300bn AustralianSuper, is making its first tentative steps into the civil war around Endeavour, and will meet with rebel board candidate Bill Wavish this week to discuss his plans for the company and strategy for improving the business performance.

AustralianSuper, which is Endeavour’s third-largest shareholder with a stake of 7.7 per cent, also recently met Endeavour chairman Peter Hearl and had discussions with chief executive Steve Donohue, The Australian can reveal.

The fund’s large block of votes makes it a potential “kingmaker” at the upcoming Endeavour annual general meeting.

The meeting with Mr Hearl was reported to be cordial.

AustralianSuper discussed corporate governance issues, the potential election of Mr Wavish to the board and relations with Endeavour’s biggest shareholder, billionaire pub baron Bruce Mathieson Sr, who is publicly backing Mr Wavish.

Separately to that meeting, AustralianSuper has also very recently spoken to Mr Donohue, who is running Endeavour’s 1700 Dan Murphy’s and BWS stores, a wine business and its 354 pubs, amid a bruising corporate battle being played out before the ­market.

AustralianSuper, which looks after almost $300bn in retirement savings for Australians, is increasingly being dragged into corporate brawls, boardroom coups and takeovers as its growing presence on the share registers of some of Australia’s biggest publicly listed companies makes it a player in corporate intrigues. Only last month the fund dealt itself into the $18.7bn foreign takeover of Origin Energy, the nation’s largest electricity and gas retailer, when it argued the company’s share price was “substantially below” its long-term value, increasing pressure on takeover suitors Brookfield and EIG to boost their offer.

Former adviser to PM Paul Keating and one-time ambassador to the US, AustralianSuper chair Don Russell leads the retirement fund that is increasingly becoming a player in corporate battles.

Next on the agenda for AustralianSuper is its role in the Endeavour battle.

Mr Wavish already has the backing of the Mathieson family, who own 15 per cent of Endeavour. Woolworths is still undecided about how it will vote its 9.1 per cent stake at the Endeavour AGM on October 31.

This makes winning the support of the giant superannuation fund vital as Mr Wavish and Mr Mathieson court the large base of more than 420,000 retail shareholders.

AustralianSuper will this week meet Mr Wavish, the former Woolworths supermarkets and liquor boss, and hear his agenda for boardroom renewal as well as strategies to resuscitate poor earnings at the liquor and pub giant.

Endeavour’s share price is down almost 24 per cent in the past 12 months.

The falling share price has certainly aggravated the biggest investor, Mr Mathieson Sr, and now will be on the minds of AustralianSuper executives.

The share price weakness over the year has reduced AustralianSuper’s stake in Endeavour by $223m. From the company’s peak share price in August 2022, ­AustralianSuper is down $417m on its Endeavour investment.

Mr Wavish will go into his meeting with AustralianSuper armed with a number of key points that he has already begun explaining to other institutional shareholders on the Endeavour share register.

Key among them will be his argument for boardroom change at Endeavour, and why he believes he has the skills and experience to lead a review and renewal of the various retail and pub businesses owned by the company.

Mr Wavish is understood to be keen to remind AustralianSuper that he meets nearly all of Endeavour’s criteria for being a director.

The company has three vacancies on its board.

Meanwhile, central to his argument around the transformation of the business will be Mr Wavish’s road map to focus on the performance of its flagship retail chain Dan Murphy’s, which he and Mr Mathieson Sr claim have lost market share and is facing slower sales, as well as the need for better financial discipline and cost control across the Endeavour group.

Endeavour Group CEO Steven Donohue and Chairman Peter Hearl. Wentworth Sofitel, Sydney. Jane Dempster.

Endeavour was demerged from Woolworths in 2021.

Despite selling down some of its stake, Woolworths still looms large on the share register of the liquor chain, winery and pub owner, but to date it has refused to comment on the corporate melee or how it will vote its shares at the AGM.

Last week Mr Mathieson Sr wrote a letter to Endeavour’s more than 420,000 shareholders urging them to support Mr Wavish’s election as a director, to end “value destruction” at the company and “restore growth, discipline and hold managers to account”.

At the start of the proxy war over the election of Mr Wavish to the board, Mr Mathieson Sr took out newspaper advertisements and launched a campaign website to get retail shareholders fully behind Mr Wavish’s candidacy.

Separately to that, lawyers acting for Mr Mathieson Sr have accused Endeavour of overseeing a “chaotic and misleading” process for its upcoming annual general meeting that has tainted the outcome, making it “grossly unfair” to Mr Wavish’s election chances.

They have now demanded the annual general meeting be delayed and that new notice of meeting materials be sent out to Endeavour shareholders.

The lawyers have signalled that Mr Mathieson Sr is prepared to use his power to call an extraordinary general meeting to hold another vote for Mr Wavish if he loses.

Originally published as The giant $300bn AustralianSuper will meet with Bill Wavish as it enters the Endeavour civil war