Early votes at Bubs indicate spill at infant formula maker to fail

afr.com:

The long-running dispute between the current and former management of Bubs Australia is coming to an end with early voting indicating a proposal from dissident investors to spill the board of the infant formula manufacturer does not have the support of most shareholders.

The decision will be formalised at a meeting on Thursday, but early indications from votes already cast show that shareholders favour the company’s current board, led by chairwoman Katrina Rathie. Some 60 per cent of those ballots showed a rejection of plans put forward to install new directors and former a2 Milk executive Peter Nathan to run the group.

Institutional Shareholder Services, a proxy advisory group, toldits clients to oppose the spill earlier this month. Proxy voting closed on Tuesday.

The dispute between the company and its former managers and founders, Kristy Carr and Dennis Lin, has extended for months and includes claims of mismanagement from both sides. It has left in its wake a sagging share price – just 23¢, down some 36 per cent in the last six months.

Early indications show that Bubs chairwoman Katrina Rathie will hang on to her job. Janie Barrett

The board spill push by Ms Carr, the company’s former chief executive, and former executive chairman Dennis Lin was first revealed by The Australian Financial Review in late May. So too was a plan to install Mr Nathan as Bubs’ new chief executive and James Jackson as its chairman.

At the heart of the fall-out was the $169 million company’s strategy in China – the world’s biggest formula market – pitting Bubs’ largest shareholders against one another. Jack Gance, the billionaire businessman behind the Chemist Warehouse chain, was an early backer of Ms Carr and Mr Lin’s board spill. He had