Endeavour spat: Major shareholders move against chairman Peter Hearl

afr.com:

There’s no time like the day before the pivotal Origin Energy vote to mount another high-profile campaign.

Street Talk understands Aussie equities power duo AustralianSuper’s Shaun Manuell and Perpetual’s Vince Pezzullo are teaming up again, this time on troubled pubs and liquor retailing giant Endeavour.

Head of equities at AustralianSuper Shaun Manuell in his Melbourne office. Louis Trerise

Multiple sources told this column the pair have been sounding out other institutional investors about possible chair candidates to dethrone Peter Hearl.

On the shortlist: former Bunnings chief John Gilham, Olympics tsar John Coates and former Walmart US chief and Woolworths executive Greg Foran, who is currently top of the pile at Air New Zealand.

AustralianSuper controls about 7.7 per cent of Endeavour’s shares. Perpetual isn’t listed as a substantial shareholder but its Equity Investment Company PIC holds the stock with a 3.4 per cent portfolio weight.

Hearl’s chairmanship of Endeavour has been the subject of intense criticism by 15 per cent shareholder and billionaire publican Bruce Mathieson, who has threatened to call an extraordinary general meeting. He has been chairman of Endeavour since it split from supermarket operatorWoolworths in mid-2021.

Mathieson – who has owned more than 1000 hotels over 40 years – has spent big on an advertising blitz to convince shareholders that change is needed ahead of the Endeavour AGM last month, claiming that $5.6 billion in sharemarket value has vanished since August 2022 and backing a push by former Woolworths executive Bill Wavish to gain a seat on the board (which ultimately failed).

Endeavour chairman Peter Hearl at the AGM in Sydney. Oscar Coleman

There’s also no love lost between