Mathieson launches campaign to win over 400,000 Endeavour shareholders
Endeavour’s largest shareholder, billionaire publican Bruce Mathieson, is stepping up a campaign to win over more than 400,000 retail shareholders in a bid to elect former Woolworths executive Bill Wavish to the board of the hotels and liquor chain business – a move opposed by the company.
Bruce Mathieson is angry that Endeavour has lost $5.6 billion in sharemarket value since August last year. Arsineh Houspian
Mr Mathieson owns a 15 per cent stake in Endeavour, which runs 354 hotels, 266 Dan Murphy’s liquor stores and 1435 BWS liquor stores. He is backing a push by Mr Wavish to gain a seat on the board and help arrest a declining share price at the company, which split off from Woolworths in 2021.
Mr Mathieson has written a letter outlining his main concerns, saying that Endeavour needs an overhaul, having lost $5.6 billion in sharemarket capitalisation since August last year.
The direct appeal to the group’s 422,000 shareholders is also being accompanied by a website that will go live on Friday night, and advertising calling for “Endeavour to do better”.
“Many of you share my extreme disappointment with Endeavour’s disastrous performance since listing on ASX,” Mr Mathieson writes in his letter.
“I am deeply concerned about the current and future strategic and operational priorities of the business, and current leadership’s ability to reverse these alarming trends, without fresh ideas in the boardroom.”
He says Endeavour’s retail business of Dan Murphy’s and BWS is “going backwards”, and says retail sales have declined by 4.3 per cent over the past nine quarters while Coles has increased by 0.8 per cent.
Endeavour has accused Mr Mathieson of undermining confidence in a “resilient” business and using selective data from
Read more on afr.com
