Former Smiggle boss and Lovisa chief John Cheston won’t buy into Solomon Lew accusations
Lovisa’s new chief executive, John Cheston, has maintained his silence over Solomon Lew’s explosive misconduct claims. The jewellery chain copped a huge first strike from shareholders.
Lovisa’s new chief executive has refused to buy into the public brawl he was dragged into by his former employer, Smiggle billionaire Solomon Lew.
John Cheston was tight lipped when questioned about Mr Lew’s blistering attack on him in September, alleging he presided over a culture of boozing, gambling and rogue workplace behaviour, which the executive denies.
Lovisa’s chairman and Mr Cheston’s new boss, retail billionaire Brett Blundy, also refused to be drawn on the row aimed at his star recruit, appearing at Lovisa’s annual meeting in Melbourne on Friday.
The meeting delivered a 76.7 per cent vote against the remuneration report which earned the Lovisa board a first strike, and its fifth strike in a row against the remuneration report. Mr Blundy owns 39 per cent of the company and was precluded from voting on the resolution.
A trading update that missed analyst expectations also crunched the share price, which fell almost 15 per cent to $30 and is well below its peak of more than $43 a share only three months ago.
Mr Cheston was approached by The Australian after the meeting to address Mr Lew’s claims but declined.
“I resigned from my job (at Smiggle), I left on the 18th of June (2024),” Mr Cheston said. “I have no comment.”
Mr Blundy walked away from any questioning.
Lovisa appointed Mr Cheston last year. However, instead of seeing through his notice period from Smiggle parent Premier Investments as planned, Mr Cheston was terminated in September 2024, three months after formalising his move to the accessories chain.
Premier Investments said at the time it had sacked Mr Cheston for “serious misconduct”.
Then, in September this year, Mr Lew used a routine media briefing called for Premier Investments’ full-year result to air his allegations of a “mob”.
Premier Investments’ investigation brought to light alleged instances of returning to the office drunk, “gambling all day”, bribery, sexual harassment, bullying and product tampering – all of which were still being examined, Mr Lew claimed at the time.
The Australian is not suggesting the allegations have any merit, just that they were made by Mr Lew and rejected by Mr Cheston.
A spokeswoman for Mr Cheston previously dismissed the accusations as a “rant” from Mr Lew and “simply untrue”.
At the Friday meeting, Mr Blundy agreed there could be more work done to better engage with shareholders and proxy advisers who took umbrage at Mr Cheston’s remuneration. But Mr Blundy also believed there was a misunderstanding among some of these shareholders about the complexity and global reach of Lovisa, which required competitive pay to secure top executive talent.
Lovisa – which has 1031 stores across 50 countries – has a record of rewarding its CEOs. Lovisa’s former boss, Victor Herrero, took home one of the biggest remuneration packages on the ASX in 2023 with a $29m windfall.
Of that payout, only $1.9m was salary, the rest was in performance-based payments, share options and rights.
In a trading update to the market Lovisa said that in the year to date like-for-like sales growth was 3.5 per cent, which was below the 5.3 per cent consensus forecast and well short of the 5.6 per cent growth reported for the first eight weeks of 2026.
Although the remuneration report was easily defeated, shareholders did cast a 65.4 per cent vote in favour of a long-term incentive plan to Mr Cheston that has a potential value of $7m over three years. Shareholders also supported the election of Mark McInnes as a director. Mr McInnes is the former long-serving CEO of Premier Investments and Mr Cheston’s one-time boss.
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