Endeavour spat: Major shareholders move against chairman Peter Hearl
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 operator Woolworths 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 Hearl and former Woolworths boss Roger Corbett, who has called on the chairman to step aside. Corbett, who is an Endeavour shareholder, supports Mathieson’s campaign and is an ally of former Woolworths executive Mr Wavish.
Hearl told The Australian Financial Review in late October that he has no intention of relinquishing the top board seat, but admitted that “there is much more to do” to restore its sagging share price and repair its relationship with Mathieson.
Endeavour operates 266 Dan Murphy’s stores, 1435 BWS liquor stores and 354 hotels with 12,700 poker machines. The company was spun out of Woolworths in June 2021, but Woolworths remains a major shareholder at 9.1 per cent.
Late last month, it disclosed sales growth across its business of 2.1 per cent in the 14 weeks to October 1. Retailing revenues increased 1.9 per cent in that period to $2.54 billion while hotel revenues grew 2.8 per cent to $553 million. Despite the growth, both divisions reported sales lower than many brokers had expected in the quarter.
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