8 hours Ago By Peter Holmes
Kogan director James Spenceley didn’t appear to be particularly bothered about a message sent by shareholders at the company’s AGM on Friday, telling ChannelNews: “Unfortunately sometimes people want to focus on one or two little items.” Ahead of the AGM in Melbourne proxy firm Ownership Matters had said Kogan investors should vote down the company’s remuneration report. This was due to an imbroglio over the timing of a combined $17 million buyout of retention options from chief executive and founder Ruslan Kogan and chief financial officer David Shafer.
Kogan Directors. While Spenceley told ChannelNews the buyout was appropriate because he didn’t want to dilute shareholdings, others say Kogan and Shafer were paid out at a premium, given that the stocks were soon on the slide. Per the Financial Review : “The options were issued to Mr Kogan and Mr Shafer in 2020.
In April, Kogan said it would allow the two executives to sell their options back to the company for the difference between their strike price – $5.29 – and a proxy share price of $8.22.
But Kogan shares tumbled 27.5 per cent to $5.10 within a month of the deal on news of a poor trading update.
” Of the nine resolutions put at Friday’s AGM, the remuneration report was the only one that failed to carry. Nearly 60 per cent of vote was against supporting the report. Still, it wasn’t as if Kogan and Shafer had to pay any money back.
That cash bonanza was in the rear view mirror. Spenceley told us the majority vote was “a mechanism for shareholders to express their concerns at a couple of things, including the cash settlement of options. It’s a message, and I think it’s one of those ones where it was introduced to send a message from shareholders without disrupting the company.
” Kogan AGM. Kogan AGM 2 Spenceley also faced the reality that his time as a director at the company may have been coming to an end, as Ownership Matters had recommended a vote against Spenceley being returned to the board. “In the interests of board accountability for the .
.. remuneration outcomes in FY24, OM recommends shareholders not support the re-election of the current remuneration and nomination committee chair [James Spenceley],” it said.
Ultimately, Spenceley scraped across the line – 21,657,878 votes (50.93%) endorsed his reelection, while 20,869,382 (49.07%) voted against.
Presumably, the voting power of Kogan and Shafer was enough to keep Spenceley around. “It’s such a better business than it was a couple of years ago; things are going really well, profits are up and we’re in a really good spot,” Spenceley said. “We have a good cost base, great products and it is an exciting time.
” ChannelNews reported on Friday that a Choice survey found Kogan was rated as the worst e-commerce store for appliances, with an overall score of 59 out of 100: “[Kogan] received the lowest score in the after-sales service category with a poor 35 per cent. Survey respondents also expressed that deliveries were sometimes slow.” James Spenceley in Ukraine with donated ambulances.
Spenceley, who is a North Sydney councillor, said he was planning to return to Ukraine early in 2025. Across seven visits since the country was invaded by Russia he has delivered more than 50 ambulances, with the money to buy them raised via gofundme. He said they were either ex-government ambulances or custom-built vehicles from Poland and that “we deliver them right to the front line medics”.
The election of Donald Trump as US President was causing “huge concern” to his connections in Ukraine, he said, as there was no clear direction on how the US may alter its policy towards the war..
