Super Retail director John Skippen abruptly steps down from board

John Skippen has resigned from the retailer, after a seeming vote against his re-election today by founder Reg Rowe.

Slater and Gordon chair John Skippen has resigned from the board of Super Retail Group in the wake of an apparent vote against him from company founder Reg Rowe.

Mr Skippen, a long-time CFO at Harvey Norman was on the board of Super Retail since 2008 -- a period which has seen sales grow from $715 million to $2.4 billion and profits from $46m to $175m.

At the company’s annual meeting Skippen only received 49 million votes in favour of his re-election, compared to another retiuring director, Launa Inman, who received 153.7 million votes.

There was a huge absention on the Skippen vote, totalling some 66.7 million, which appeared to include the 56 million shares controilled by Mr Rowe.

Some proxy groups were advising shareholders vote against Skippen in the wake of the recent problems at Slater and Gordon.

Technically Skippen won the ballot today, with 49.2 million in favour and 38.6 million against. But the huge absention, apparently including those of the founder, have seemed to convinced him to step down.

It came as the group reported solid first-quarter sales, but outed its Supercheap Auto chain as one of the first victims of Masters’ $500 million fire sale.