Wavish turns on charm offensive amid battle for Endeavour seat

Former Woolworths executive Bill Wavish is preparing to meet with the investment community this week in his battle for a seat on the pubs and retail giant Endeavour.

Endeavour Group under pressure.

Former supermarket boss Bill Wavish, who is seeking a seat on the board of Endeavour Group, has accused the pub and retail giant of a “complete absence of operating cost discipline,” excessive debt and “confusing branding.”

The broadside is contained in an investor presentation seen by The Australian that Mr Wavish will present to key investors amid a “proxy war” to obtain the seat, a campaign backed by billionaire pub baron Bruce Mathieson.

Endeavour shares are down almost 24 per cent over the past year with Mr Wavish noting retail sales are trading backwards with revenue per store plummeting.

Endeavour, which owns Dan Murphy’s, BWS and ALH Hotels, was spun out of Woolworths in 2021. The stock closed down 1 cent to $5.24 on Monday.

Mr Wavish, a former executive director and chief financial officer of Woolworths in the early 2000s, was part of the senior leadership team that helped the supermarket chain acquire and expand Dan Murphy’s.

“Mr Wavish maintains a deep affinity for the business as well as a strong desire to see the company return to its full potential and forge a path back to shareholder value creation,” according to the presentation.

“Since demerging in 2021, Endeavour has suffered material value and strategic decline, undoing the foundations that delivered a long history of success.”

Dan Murphy store in Sydney.

The fight by Mr Wavish for a board seat has unleashed a full-blown proxy war ahead of its annual general meeting on October 31. Mr Wavish already has the backing of Mr Mathieson, whose family owns 15 per cent of Endeavour, while Woolworths is still undecided about how it will vote its 9.1 per cent stake.

The civil war within Endeavour’s boardroom was partly ignited by a management decision in July to jump ahead of Victorian gaming reforms that set down new rules limiting trading hours for pokies venues.

Mr Mathieson, whose son Bruce Mathieson Jnr sits on the board of Endeavour, was angered by the sharemarket reaction to the Victorian reforms and the decision to reduce pokies operating hours.

This makes winning the support of giant superannuation funds such AustralianSuper vital as Mr Wavish and Mr Mathieson court the large base of more than 420,000 retail shareholders. AustralianSuper, the nation’s largest superannuation fund, is expected to meet with Mr Wavish this week to discuss his plans for the company and strategy for improving the business performance. Mr Wavish is understood to be keen to remind AustralianSuper that he meets nearly all of Endeavour’s criteria for being a director. The company has three vacancies on its board. The share price weakness over the year has reduced AustralianSuper’s stake in Endeavour by $223m. From the company’s peak share price in August 2022, ­AustralianSuper is down $417m on its Endeavour investment.

Mr Wavish’s investor presentation highlighted the fact his term at Woolworths coincided with its “golden era whereby it was Australia’s largest employer, its largest company by turnover and a Fortune 500 company delivering over 400 per cent share price growth.”

Under the leadership team he was part of Woolworths took liquor sales from under $1 billion at number two in market share, past Coles to number one in under four years.

The presentation points to an “inventory days blow out” at Endeavour and “sharp deterioration in cash conversion” “Working capital management is weak and there is a lack of balance sheet discipline,” the presentation said. “Return on capital employed is sharply lower than then peers.”

Last week Bruce Mathieson Sr wrote a letter to Endeavour’s more than 420,000 shareholders urging them to support Mr Wavish’s election as a director, to end “value destruction” at the company and “restore growth, discipline and hold managers to account”.