Suggests key actions to be taken.
Following the recent Harvey Norman AGM, the Australian Shareholders’ Association (ASA) has called for substantial governance reform at the company.
ASA believes key actions at Harvey Norman should follow:
- Gerry Harvey should be replaced as chairman by an independent non-executive director
- The Harvey Norman board should call tenders on the 2016-17 audit with a view to making a change to introduce a “fresh set of eyes”
- Following ASX and ASA guidelines the majority of the board should be independent and this should occur within two years.
ASA chairman Diana D’Ambra said, “After weighing up the media debate, the position of some proxy advisers and the AGM discussion, ASA ended up voting undirected proxies against the adoption of the Harvey Norman accounts.”
“We also opposed the remuneration report and the re-election of two long serving non-independent directors. The incomplete reporting of the company’s controlled entities was also disappointing and contributed to the decision to oppose the accounts.
“The experienced ASA representatives who attended the AGM, including two directors, were all very disappointed with the leadership shown by Gerry Harvey and believe substantial change is now warranted,” D’Ambra said.
The Australian Shareholders’ Association (ASA) is the only independent, member-funded, not-for-profit organisation that educates shareholders to become better investors and focuses on driving improvements in transparency and accountability of corporate behaviour in Australia.