Shareholder revolt forces EGM of AIM-listed co

Shareholder revolt forces EGM of AIM-listed co

AIM-listed Worthington Nicholls is forced to convene December EGM to sack CEO and interim FD

The board of Wilmslow-based
Worthington
Nicholls
, the AIM-listed air conditioning, heating and ventilation
installation company, has been forced to convene an extraordinary general
meeting (EGM) no later than 6 December to remove the incumbent chairman, interim
financial director and other directors after failing to find replacements in an
executive search started last August.

The ‘requisition group’, shareholders representing 14.5% of the voting share,
sent a notice to the Worthington Nicholls board last week, calling for an EGM to
remove Alastair Stoddart, chairman; Christopher Neilson, interim FD; David Levis
and Stephen Mulligan from the board and to appoint Simon Beart, Ian Rodney Mann
and Thomas William Good as new directors.

The company sidelined its newly appointed FD Tim Hunt, a former KPMG
accountant, last month after it announced on 17 August its turnover and profit
for the financial year ending 30 September, would be materially below market
expectations, sending the company’s
share
price
into freefall, to 19.75p from a high of 199p in April. Hunt’s primary
role was to oversee Worthington Nicholls’ first audit as a public company.

The board said today it had been hampered in its executive search, led by
Stoddart and Neilson, for suitable candidates for the chief executive and
permanent FD roles and other management positions by the ‘uncertainty
surrounding the company’. But since the completion of a KPMG financial review of
the company this month, the search had ‘gathered momentum’.

Further reading:

Accountant gets FD role at air-con group

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