Jag Sanger emails colleagues to announce he is leaving The Market Herald

The Market Herald founder Jag Sangera bruptly exited the business on Friday.

It’s been a chaotic week at listed financial news website The Market Herald.

Founder Jag Sanger abruptly exited the business on Friday, one day after a campaign was mobilised to have him removed as a company director.

Sanger emailed colleagues late in the evening on Thursday, mere hours after a notice was filed to the ASX stating the company would convene a general meeting to oust him from the board.

“Many of you have heard that I will be leaving The Market Herald. It’s been a privilege to lead this business,” he wrote.

“From a small website in Perth to a multi-platform publisher around the world we should all be proud of what we’ve achieved. And the acquisition of Gumtree, CarsGuide and Auto­trader opens up so many opportunities for the business.”

Certainly a warm and fuzzy sentiment, but not a word about why he’s actually decided to heave-ho, let alone addressing the almighty bust-up that’s occurred with The Market Herald’s colourful director, Gavin Argyle, and others in the Argyle family. They own more than 40 per cent of the company and moved to eject Sanger this week, ending 20 years of friendship between them.

The Argyle’s holding is apparently diluted, down from more than 50 per cent since the company’s last capital raising earlier this year – and from what we’re gathering they’re none too happy about this slippage in ­control.

One executive genuinely sad to see off Sanger is Sarah Lenard, co-founder and chief revenue officer at The Market Herald.

Her reply to his email, obtained by this column, basically reads like a love letter. Oh, yes, they’re also in a relationship and have been for the past two years.

“Right from the beginning, your ideas, your vision, your leadership, has inspired us all in building an incredible business,” she wrote.

There’s more about “journalistic integrity” and “truth”, which is all very sweet but kind of woolly given The Market Herald owns stock trading forum HotCopper, which has more effluent running through it than the outfall sewer at Bondi Beach.

Some fireworks at the company’s Christmas party on Thursday night in Manly, too, where Gumtree Australia CEO Tommy Logtenberg gave a speech and made a remark about Sanger that caused a few in the room to bridle (one employee smashed a glass and stormed out, deploying a choice phrase en route).

It seems Logtenberg is positioning himself as a contender to replace Sanger as managing director. Gumtree was recently acquired by the company.

Suffice it to say that none of these theatrics are much appreciated by the company’s heftier shareholders, namely the fund managers at SG Hiscock and gazillionaire Duncan Saville, chairman of ICM Group, who had a few questions for Argyle about board renewal at the AGM recently.

Time will tell if any of this dissatisfaction will put the company’s funding at risk. That’s what we’re hearing, anyway.

Executive exodus

Further disarray and another high-level departure over at Responsible Wagering Australia, the industry group currently representing the bookies, namely Sportsbet, Entain, bet365, Unibet and Pointsbet.

Already shaken by the sudden resignation of chief executive Justin Madden a week ago, the latest to depart is deputy chief executive James Duncan who carries a substantial rolodex and was renowned for discreetly kicking unpopular regulatory shake-ups into the long grass. From what we hear further departures at RWA are being considered.

The two exits have left behind a skeleton staff of mostly juniors under Julie Ryan, who briefly served as a chief legal officer at Sportsbet earlier this year and has since turned external consultant.

She’s somehow running what’s left of the RWA while also leading a review of the organisation. And let us be the first to predict that she’ll probably recommend herself for the job of CEO, a move not so uncommon these days. Remember, Andrew Thorburn led a review of Essendon Football Club and then suggested himself for the role of big cheese. Peter Nankivell went on to do the exact same at Hawthorn, let’s not forget.

Losing Madden and Duncan couldn’t have come at a worse time for the industry, as the Albanese government is under pressure to tighten the screws even further on the gambling sector, particularly the daily cataract of Sportsbet advertisements being blasted on television.

We hear Madden had decent suction with a few in the federal Labor cabinet, which might have come in handy.

Safety in numbers

While we’re on the subject, we noted with some irony that Star Entertainment Group and Ladbrokes, the betting brand owned by Entain, have partnered with the Brisbane Racing Club, according to an announcement on Friday.

Readers might recall that Entain and Star are very much in the gun with anti-money laundering agency Austrac. Just this week the agency filed papers in the Federal Court alleging the casino had breached numerous conditions concerning cash movements and high-risk customers.

As for Entain, its operations from 2016 to 2010 have been under examination by Austrac since September to establish if the company has complied with anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing legislation. It therefore makes only perfect sense that these two extremely trusted brands should partner with the BRC, just as the Queensland government issues The Star with a show cause notice over whether it should continue holding its casino licence.