Solomon Lew fires gun in push to purge Myer board

Myer has handed its share register to Solomon Lew, who can now start lobbying investors for control of the store owner’s board.

Solomon Lew has conducted a long-running campaign against Myer. Picture: David Geraghty

Department store Myer has handed over its share register to lawyers acting for billionaire Solomon Lew’s Premier Investments, firing the starter’s pistol on what could prove a bruising and public brawl as Mr Lew rallies fellow Myer shareholders to eject its directors and appoint his own hand-picked nominees.

With the share register now in the hands of Premier Investments’ law firm, the influential Arnold Bloch Leibler, it can begin directly communicating with and lobbying the hundreds of thousands of Myer investors it will need to vote to tip out the board.

Mr Lew’s Premier Investments, which owns brands such as Portmans, Just Jeans, Peter Alexander and Smiggle, first requested the share register from Myer on July 9. Corporate regulations require a share register to be handed over within seven days of a formal request.

A spokesman for Myer was approached by The Australian but declined to comment or confirm if the share register had been handed over.

Mr Lew has been agitating for management and boardroom upheaval at Myer since Premier Investments first bought a 10.77 per cent in the department store in 2017, which cost around $101m.

When Premier Investments moved to 15.77 per cent of Myer this month, the retailer’s acting chair JoAnne Stephenson extended an olive branch, offering board representation following years of bitter conflict with the billionaire.

Mr Lew’s response was direct and crushed any hopes of peace talks: “Premier has nothing to gain from spending time with the members of the current Myer board.”

The billionaire retailer has fought a long-running and public war with the Myer boardroom. Premier Investments successfully saw Myer chairman Garry Hounsell ejected from the board in October, just hours before Myer’s annual general meeting, as he won support for voting out the chairman from fund manager Geoff Wilson, who holds 7.8 per cent of Myer and is its second biggest shareholder after Mr Lew.

Now with the share register, Premier Investments can kickstart its campaign to unseat Myer’s remaining non-executive directors - acting chairman JoAnne Stephenson, David Whittle and Jacquie Naylor. Mr Lew has previously demanded they resign or be thrown out by shareholders.

Mr Lew is yet to unveil the nominees he would seek to put on the Myer board in their place.

The key debate within Mr Lew’s war room is whether to call the EGM for September to sweep out Myer directors or wait for Myer’s AGM in November, when he could eject the board.