Jack Gance questions Bubs spending after board spill fails
Jack Gance, the billionaire co-founder of Chemist Warehouse and Bubs Australia’s second-biggest shareholder, demanded to know why the board spent what he claimed was $5 million defending itself from a failed governance coup.
The long-running dispute between the current and former executives of Bubs was settled after the current board led by Katrina Rathie retained their seats, defeating a dissident group led by former chief executive Kristy Carr and ex-executive chairman Dennis Lin.
Jack Gance, Bubs major shareholder and chairman of Chemist Warehouse, took aim at the board. Flavio Bracaleone
Bubs shares fell 13 per cent to 20¢.
Mr Gance said he was not happy about the way the board ousted Ms Carr, whose campaign he supported.
“My question is, why would you spend millions of dollars fighting this? Why would you spend so much money?” he asked the meeting. “The way I understand it, the dismissal of Dennis and Kristy was terrible. That I am uncomfortable with. I’m wondering, is this the way the business will continue?”
Bubs chairwoman Ms Rathie later told The Australian Financial Review $5 million was “fanciful”. “I don’t have the precise figures. It may be in the hundreds of thousands. It was a shareholder requisition meeting and that means the company has to pay for it,” she said.
Mr Gance told the Financial Review before the proceedings that the board’s spending was a “total waste of shareholder money”, but he would still support Bubs.
“Hopefully they’ll work with us, as a retailer, to maximise the sales. I’m not saying that the current board is going to destroy the company. I’m saying that I believe that the proposed new board and management team would do a better job.”
He added that Bubs was the “laughing stock of
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