Jayne re-elected unopposed Tennis Australia Chair till 2022
https://www.tennis.com.au/news/2019/...ustralia-chair
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Jayne re-elected unopposed Tennis Australia Chair till 2022
https://www.tennis.com.au/news/2019/...ustralia-chair
The Board chopped her off because of this I guess. She won't be able to commit 100% of herself for the company and she is not entitle to accept another roles with her agreement and huge pay with the company.
Very greedy from her and the Board of A2 did not accept that. Off You Go... and I am happy about it ..hahahah
I think once the full reality sets in as to just how much she has pulled the wool over the eyes and ripped off shareholders, myriads of pitchforks will be located in sheds all over the place.
Shareholders association lashes out and is clearly deeply unimpressed.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/far...hief-executive
Hearn insisted the board was right behind Hrdlicka’s strategy to ramp up marketing spending to help build the brand on the ground in China
But where Hrdlicka has been prepared to sacrifice margin to get there, it appears that the board feels less sure about that part of the plan.
https://www.afr.com/chanticleer/behi...0191209-p53i2b
the bull was right .. the board got cold feet and has lost the plot
now we know the board position it all makes sense why shorts have been increasing big time ... they lost the plot and are doomed long term to the likes of nestle , mengui
Shareholders Association chief executive Michael Midgley said it deplored A2's handling of the hiring and stepping down of Hrdlicka.
She knew A2 was a "worldwide company" when she took on the job, he said.
"It should not have come as a surprise that there was going to be a lot of travelling.
"The A2 board must be held to account. If there are any outstanding payments, other than base salary to the resignation date, then the board must use every legal avenue to deny them to Hrdlicka," he said.
"We would expect the A2 board to have had a catch-all 'board discretion' clause in the contract that will allow this. If not, this in itself is a glaring omission."
It was disappointing there were confidentiality provisions in relation to her departure, he said.
"'Confidentiality' is a very convenient excuse in these situations and may obscure other problems that shareholders have a right to know. As it stands shareholders will have every right to wonder if their money is disappearing into a confidential black hole."
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/far...hief-executive
http://nzx-prod-s7fsd7f98s.s3-websit...669/313611.pdf
Nice enough package for Geoff - interesting that the bonus is entirely at discretion of Board.
I will have to rethink my investment in A2 Milk then. As a long term investor I agreed with Jayne's strategy if they want to grow the business. We don't have many businesses that technically could operate in every market on the planet so we need a Board that has a vision and the strength to execute.
I pretty much doubt if the decision to hire Jayne was entirely up to Geoff. He probably liked her credentials and endorsed her based on what she offered at the time of interview and further discussions.
Having said that the Board need to make sure that they don't screw things up again.
Best thing about that is his term is indefinite. Maybe he will get a second wind of energy at his age and keep running the company ?
He a wealthy man and probably bored ****less with his retirement already. There's only so many drinks you can enjoy at the 19th hole of golf courses, (so to speak), before a driven man looks to get his teeth into the next challenge.
https://www.ig.com/au/news-and-trade...ps-down-191209
"Tellingly, in an A2 investor briefing also released this morning, the company's CFO David Hearn stressed that the company will 'target an EBITDA margin of at least 30% in the medium term.'
A goal the Board views as achievable, without much detriment to growth, he added."
And there you have it - the board disagreed with Jane and believes that growth and high margins can go together.
Who is right?
In other words the board felt Jayne was playing much to fast and loose with marketing and related human resource cost, which is what I have been suggesting for a long time now. EPS growth was much faster under Geoffrey Babbage's leadership and that's all that really matters in my opinion.
I think the Board is right.
Who is right you ask ...I say Jayne will be proved right.
Most on this thread (those invested) seemed to say that increased marketing was the way to go even if ebitda margins suffered a little. One or two were even excited taking that course of action.
Seems a few have different views now.
From what I have read so far it seemed to me that were some disagreement or different point of views between the board and the CEO.
Hearn’s profile on A2 website says he resides in the UK
Over here on an extended stint?
Agree, and we're only talking about a small few %, this is almost a 2 billion$ PA company with 1/2 a bill in the bank and some folks get heir knickers in a twist worrying about a couple of hundy mill in marketing costs into opening the two largest markets in the world!
Anyway, she's gone burger. Have to live in the present, the CEO is dead, long live the CEO. Geoff can trim the marketing costs, fire a few talking heads management buy-in's from Jaynes hiring, turn a decent profit, put the SP back on an even keel ... and hopefully set the company up for a 10 bagger from here.
Actually, it's the 10 bagger from here that Jayne saw that the Board may not have, or maybe Geoff who's in the Boards pocket. But keep the conservative shareholders happy and we'll see $20 soon enough. Maybe not $200, but give it time.
She's gone. God is back. All is good. The non-holders can pile in when this current weakness bottoms, and long holds can suck up a few more, then everyone will be happy with their $20 SP in due course. Then a new CEO will come along and everyone will doubt the wisdom of the Board who obviously ****ed up this time.
Get to $200! Go Board, do it. Don't live in the moment, live in making the making the future .. prosperous.
Geoffrey Babbage built this company up from nothing, absolutely nothing. He presided over many years of exceptionally strong growth in sales and earnings per share and some people have made exceptional returns from holding shares while he was at the helm. ( I am very happy with my tenure as a shareholder).
Frankly, I am amazed that there is so much loyalty to Jayne on here who has done nothing but throw tremendous amounts of marketing resource, (which judging by results achieved seems to have been very poorly targeted and largely ineffective), and enjoyed nothing but slowing growth in top line sales and dramatically slower growth in eps. Almost right from the start the excuses started flowing, the game has changed, the low hanging fruit have been picked etc etc etc.
She was a very poor hire and has added very little to the business. I have consistently said this for quite some time and it would appear the board have been of the same view for quite some time too.
When will people accept that running a third rate budget carrier with truly appalling customer satisfaction ratings has nothing whatsoever in common with building a premium brand dairy food business ? What is so hard to understand about that ? The cultural fit was poor right from the start and things obviously deteriorated when she brought her girlfriends in who obviously infused the company with more of JetStar's "winning" culture.
I suspect there has been a lot of conflict within senior management circles and the board have had enough of her throwing money around in a scattergun manner at any form of marketing and simply hoping some of it works. The company was growing top line sales and eps at vastly greater rates when Geoffrey Babbage was in charge. This is an indisputable historical fact. I was not game to reinvest in ATM with Jayne in charge. Its back on my radar now.
Not much loyalty over at Hotcopper, an almost unanimous scathing appraisal of her time and actions as CEO and exactly the opposite feelings toward the return of Geoff.
Good leaders make results, poor leaders make excuses, it's as simple as that. Any person can come in and treble the marketing budget, hire a bunch of mates adding even more cost and then blame the mediocre performance on a range of factors like the game has changed. Why on earth some on here think she was some sort of marketing and growth guru when results achieved suggest the exact opposite, is beyond my comprehension. I guess people have to believe in something.
I believe in top line and eps growth, these are the KPI's that really matter. The growth rate in both of these slowed dramatically under her "leadership" and that's an indisputable fact.
The fact that she's gone immediately suggests this was highly acrimonious between her and the board and their relationship has been severely strained for quite some time. Talk of her not being cognisant of the travel requirements and health issues is just a window dressing this and is really very disingenuous in my opinion.
Shareholders association's very strongly worded opinion, (seldom seen one so strongly worded), suggests the board simply stuffed up badly in hiring her and should come clean and admit it.
Some guy name Leon sent me a private msg and kinda telling me to shutup and stop bulls ATM. I think he is the same guy who was looking for a handle of $11 Sp for A2 in Hotcopper about amonth ago before the AGM , probably got frustrated because with all of that the SP is still far away from his Dream Handle .. some one please tell this to Hotcopper A2's thread or Smuglex at Hotcopper please... hahahahah....
I will put John Key for the role. Who agree , give me a rep !
Interim CEO is BABIDGE
We should spell his name correctly
Ok so I need to be upfront and admit I do have some serious insider information on the whole situation.
Problems started in her first 4 weeks - my insider tells me that she thought she was working for the other milk company and so the entire performance related remuneration thing was a complete shock.
Unfortunately things didn't get better when she realized she was not working for Fonterra and she sought independent mediation to support her position that lack of work ethic let alone performance was in fact an industry standard at her level.
Apparently if she had been able to unload shares faster she would have been gone but on top of that she was struggling to find another employer who would pay for the prior employers future performance bonus......
Only upside is the 'The Bab' is back.
Mighty good performance by Jayne at the ASM considering she knew she was in for the chop
A trouper to the end
Shareholders Association’s Midgley described A2's board as "naive and excessively generous".
I tend to agree. They threw cash at her faster than what Jayne threw at marketing and growth
I think we have a problem here
Don’t be surprised if there is a ‘strategic withdrawal’ from the US ....a la UK
It has certainly been a 18 month misstep and it does take time for a company to pivot with all the previous new hires, in key roles, to be reconsidered by who the new CEO ends up being. New hires that follow/associated with a CEO is actually very common, they usually do not move on as quick as a departing CEO. An Australasian company taking on the US and China markets with a winning strategy is a big ask concurrently. The hardest part is having the key people to give it a fair shake. I don't see the key people in place and it does require more than just the right CEO.
Last reported us revenue was up around 100% on the previous year, they've got the product into well over 10,000 stores including Walmart, Kroger's and Costco, have just launched a new product, and are reporting double digit in-store sales growth. Not to mention they have a war chest running into the hundreds of millions. I think they'll let it run for a while yet
Mr Hearn said Ms Hrdlicka was a ''change agent'' who had been aggressively pursuing the execution of a strategy
"She had ruffled some feathers from time to time as she made changes
this is the biggie
there would now be more focus on preserving profit margins and less on chasing market share.
https://www.afr.com/companies/retail...0191209-p53i1c
wow hearn stuffed it hrdlicker was going for market share thru aggressive marketing spend and hearn says stuff the growth lets preserve margin. wow is this a growth company anymore?
I really hope not. US is shaping well, a key reason for at least some of the forward P/E ratio.
There is definitely more to the situation than Jane quitting because she was unprepared for the amount of traveling required to do the job.
Come on - she is a change agent, highly regarded in her previous roles and was head-hunted out of Qantas by ATM to lead the company to its next phase of growth.
And the next phase of growth strategy put in place by her involves US (in place of UK) and greater emphasis on China (no additional travel required).
Looks to me like it is a case of the instos and in turn, the board getting cold feet over the growth strategy indeed.
I was one of those spooked by the heavy spend in the US as part of the growth strategy - the US being a graveyard of many a NZ companies' growth ambitions. But that's just me.
Meanwhile, I am with W69 - we are seeing some on this forum who were keen supporters of the growth strategy under Jane now turning personal on her - not a good look.
your probably right , some instos want short term share price performance to boost there own returns at any cost. even if it is to the detriment of the company long term.
its easier to defend a big market share when you have no big competitors yet seriously in the space than to try to defend a smaller market share against bigger and more resourced companies when they agressively pursue the space.
Jane joined on 16 July 2018 when ATM's sp was $10.75 - it is now $14.62, was $15.15 before the shock announcement.
That's 36% up or $2.92 billion increase in market capitalization.
Contrary to whatever others may think, I think she deserved every cent of what she was paid - it is less than 1% of the wealth created under her term.
The Board needs to explain better the circumstances of her departure - something smells very badly.
She was rolled for sure but anyway no point wasting anymore energy over spilt milk, its onward and upward as they say with a proven/trustworthy Captain at the helm, next big piece of news is hopefully inclusion into the ASX 50 which means the sp wont be staying down for too much longer.
its not normal to have a great company so heavily shorted , 9% of the company is now shorted and has increase 2% in just the last few weeks. so some people are betting this company has lost the plot big time.
Or it could be $10.00.
She has her fan base in the Australian institutional investors' market.
Point is, she has done her job - it is a really bad look for those who supported her growth strategy to be putting the boot in now.
Bad bad look. :t_down:
Let's be critical and examine what the Board has done and why they have done it - and what's the strategy going forward.
Being objective here - I am on the sidelines now.
The wonders of modern global communication and travel
Board has 1 based in UK (Chair), one based in Australia, 1 based in China and 2 in NZ
Nice cosy chats
t_j’s mate Chelsea quoted in stuff yesterday
Chelsea Leadbetter, senior equity analyst at Forsyth Barr, said it was difficult to know the fulls ins and outs, "but having Geoff [Babidge] back is obviously a good thing".Analysts had struggled to understand some of the strategic comments coming out of the company.
Chelsea (and others) have not been doing their job properly
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/118...-18month-reign
No wonder she looks smug, shareholders have been thoroughly "milked".
Repeat:
Jane joined on 16 July 2018 when ATM's sp was $10.75 - it is now $14.62, was $15.15 before the shock announcement.
That's 36% up or $2.92 billion increase in market capitalization since she took the helm.
Contrary to whatever others may think, I think she deserved every cent of what she was paid - it is less than 1% of the wealth created under her term.
Okay, lets go there mate. Here's how I see it. I know others will have a different point of view and that's fine.
Its an extremely volatile share so I think any analysis of the share price over her tenure should be based on a 90 day VWAP to smooth out the very volatile nature of the share price. For example in February 2018 it hit $14.70 in intra day trading so it all depends upon your frame of reference.
Looking at the chart for the last 2 years I would infer an approximate 90 day VWAP of about $12 before she was appointed and approximately a $14 90 day VWAP in her last 3 months.
If you smooth out the volatility it could easily be argued she added nothing as 14/12 = 16.7% gain in 18 months and in that period the NZX50 went up approx. 25%.
Any analysis of her performance whether its based on spot prices or VWAP must be measured in the context of the NZX50 as its clear with the substantial decline in interest rates in the last 2 years PE multiples have expanded.
I think she created nothing and simply built upon the momentum that was already clearly evident in the business under Geoffrey Babbage's excellent leadership.
It is abundantly clear and an undeniable historical fact that sales and eps growth slowed considerably (compared to previous rates of growth) under her tenure.
I argue she created no value under her term and any attempt to justify her remuneration based on a percentage of value created is spurious at best and conceptually fundamentally flawed without a comparison to NZX50 relative performance.
I'm going to leave it at that.
Which, Beagle, is fine.
What is highly objectionable is as W69 pointed out, some posters putting the boot in now after praising her strategy to high heavens previously - high growth strategy is ok with lower margins, look at the long term etc etc. Adds nothing to a proper assessment of the situation which warrants proper examination.
Not meaning you of course.
Increasing margins in the short term is easy - just cut back spending.
There's a big price to be paid in future though as many a company has found when they cut back spending on R&D, promotion and marketing, brand building and upgrading personnel.
Whirlpool comes to mind.
It's virtually inconceivable that the company could have continued growing at the previous breakneck speed when it has grown so large. Growth was always going to slow down, and I've been quite happy with progress over Jane's tenure. I sold down a few yesterday but A2 remains one of my largest holdings, I hope that this doesn't mean the company is going to reign in the aggressive expansion outlined recently.
Maybe the Board looked at the H120 forecast and said hells bells only 30% revenue growth on pcp and if we’re lucky 18% ebitda growth (compared to revenue growing 40% plus in last couple of years). That means in relative terms H1 is a shocker - worst for some time.
Jayne - your strategy not working that well - instos not happy - your words not turning into reality - time to go
Jeez H220 better be a boomer or else FY20 won’t be reflecting the intent of this ‘strategic growth’
Question - if the strategy they agreed to prosecute is only delivering 30% revenue growth and 20% ebitda growth isn’t something wrong.
I’m feeling like t_j’s mate Chelsea - rather confused
With Marketing it must be carefully targeted, planned and executed. Scattergun approaches can be analogous to throwing money to the wind and tens of millions can easily be wasted. Marketing low cost third rate airline seats that potentially almost anyone might buy is very different to building brand awareness of a high end dairy company that only a small percentage of customers might buy.
Throwing Jayne into this was like taking someone off the lot of a Turners Car yard that specialised in disposing of end of life vehicles and appointing them as CEO for Mercedes-Benz New Zealand. Some appointments were always destined to fail and were never a good fit from the outset.
HLG have a good disciplined approach where they're targeting social media and digital channels. Very smart operators when it comes to marketing spend.
How are your shorting mates going today bull? Must be feeling a bit of chafing heat I reckon.PS-Amazing how my 160k down yesterday has nearly reversed, well actually not.
Aussies liking Geoff's resurrection by the looks.
Don't believe her departure is anything to do with the strategy. Things have been tracking well, and the strategy makes sense. Besides the board signed it off and clearly agreed.
The wording "......has agreed to step down from her role....." is pretty clear - she was pushed. We may never know exactly why, but relationships are likely the main reason.
She may well be a smart and good CEO, but it has appeared from the start that she is far more about Jayne than she is about anything else.
A2 Milk wanted a change agent but was rattled by Hrdlicka's speed
https://www.smh.com.au/business/comp...09-p53i5k.html
Oldies couldn’t hack the pace I reckon
After release of FY19 results and explanation that future EBITDA margin would be in the late 20% region the share price tanked a few dollars.
After the FY19 annual meeting wherein the revised strategy of a higher targeted EDITDA targeted margin was articulated, the share price recovered a few dollars.
I think its reasonable to conclude that on a weighted average basis, shareholders were uncomfortable with her strategy.
The shorters probably got the inside word that Jayne was on her way out so they piled in, but what they didnt know was that Geoff was coming back, the bonfire has been lit and inclusion into the ASX 50 will be like petrol being poured on top.
Looks like a strong close in Auss tonight. And welcome back Beagle:t_up:.
still issues with strategy will not been gone tomorrow, they will be compromising on margin into the US given who they are dealing with, that’s a clear cut case. have the feeling still plenty of money to be made as shareholders yet like Xero not make it in the US and really not become a true world class multinational, shame given the rewards that should have come from that.
The a2 yo yo. Only a few cents away from preannouncement sp. You just can't keep a good cow down.
Mr Market says ..... Jayne Who??
https://www.shortman.com.au/stock?q=A2M
Feeling the burn ...
Hasn't made the ASX50 this time.
Maybe Jayne could go back to JetStar ? https://www.stuff.co.nz/travel/trave...kend-read-this