Ampol exec Louise Warner off to takeover suitor Couche-Tard

Ampol chief commercial officer Louise Warner has quit the fuel retailer to join Canada’s takeover suitor Couche-Tard.

Louise Warner has quit Ampol to join Canada’s takeover suitor Couche-Tard. Picture: Chloe Erlich

Ampol chief commercial officer Louise Warner has quit the fuel retailer to join Canada’s takeover suitor Couche-Tard, which lobbed an $8.8bn takeover bid for the company last year.

Ms Warner will serve six months gardening leave before joining Couche-Tard in a North American role next year.

Ampol’s trading and shipping boss, Brent Merrick, will relocate from Singapore to Sydney as executive general manager for commercial, while Andrew Brewer will rejoin Ampol in December as executive general manager for infrastructure.

Ms Warner was considered among the top executives in line to replace long-serving chief executive Julian Segal. However, former Rio Tinto executive Matt Halliday was confirmed as permanent chief executive in June.

Ampol Chief executive Matt Halliday. Picture: Toby Zerna

Her departure was described by one analyst as “a huge loss for the business” although not unexpected after missing out on the top Ampol job.

Couche-Tard has kept the door open to reviving a takeover tilt for Ampol after pausing its interest earlier this year due to COVID-19 economic volatility.

That raised the prospect of Ms Warner spearheading a move by the Canadian giant into infrastructure and supply given her experience in that area, potentially including a revised offer for Ampol in the future.

Still, Couche-Tard gave a cautious assessment of the Australian market in its last earnings call, suggesting it would not make any immediate moves.

“The recent results released by Ampol were weaker than we expected and the headlines seem to be more around financial engineering. It’s really hard to understand the underlying perform­ance of their business during the COVID environment,” Couche-Tard chief executive Brian Hannasch said after releasing its first-quarter results on September 2.

“The Lytton refinery has experienced strong and persistent pressure on margins, which I guess likely raises some questions as to the near-term viability of that plant. Retail volumes, like in North America, were also impacted materially.”

Australian oil refiners, including Ampol, have warned of a tough outlook, despite the Morrison government rollout of an industry subsidy package, with adverse market conditions to continue pressuring local operations over the medium term.

Scott Morrison announced plans to invest in new domestic diesel storage facilities, create a minimum onshore fuel stockholding and a 1.15c-a-litre refinery subsidy to keep the nation’s four refining facilities afloat.