AGL Energy to fight Mike Cannon-Brookes’ Groke Ventures board seat grab
The energy major will contest Grok Ventures campaign to install additional directors to its board after Mike Cannon-Brookes pledged to take its fight directly to shareholders.
AGL Energy said it would contest a campaign by Mike Cannon-Brookes’ Grok Ventures to install additional directors to the power giant’s board after the billionaire pledged to take its fight directly to shareholders.
The electricity company’s board said on Friday it will support the nomination of only one of the four directors nominated by its dissident shareholder, setting the company up for a showdown with the Atlassian billionaire at its November 15 annual shareholder meeting.
AGL has already lost a high profile spat with the tech titan after it was forced to shelve its planned demerger earlier this year, resulting in both its chief executive Graeme Hunt and former chairman Peter Botten being ousted.
Its new chair, Patricia McKenzie, said it was confident its call on directors would be backed by investors.
“Yes, they have announced that they’ll run a campaign with our shareholders. We will also talk to our shareholders on this issue,” Ms McKenzie told an energy forum in Sydney.
“We’ll be speaking with our shareholders and proxy advisors. Ultimately, it’s a matter for the shareholders to design the composition of the board.
“But we feel that we have made a decision and recommendations in the best interest of the company, and we are quite prepared to stand behind that decision.”
AGL released its notice of meeting on Friday, saying its board would support only the nomination of former Tesla executive Mark Twidell from the four nominees of Mr Cannon-Brookes, through Galipea Partnership, a company associated with his privately-owned investment arm Grok Ventures.
AGL’s board would not support Grok’s other three candidates, including former ESB chair Kerry Schott, Australian Financial Complaints Authority chair John Pollaers, and Metcash and CSR director Christine Holman.
Grok controls only 11.3 per cent of AGL shares, and Ms McKenzie told shareholders it was “unusual” for a shareholder without a controlling interest to nominate so many candidates to the board of a listed company.
