4 days Ago By Varun Godinho
Dean Paatsch, the boss of shareholder advisory group Ownership Matters, who vociferously demanded accountability at Super Retail Group only a few weeks ago over allegations of bullying, victimisation and inappropriate company travel, has apparently not used the same yardstick when it comes to Nine which has seen its reputation seriously bruised over the release of a damning report about its toxic work culture. Super Retail Group is in court defending itself against accusations raised against its CEO Anthony Heraghty and other senior executives. Paatsch demanded access to blocked court documents, saying, “It’s interesting because it involves allegations about the credibility of the company’s whistleblower regime and those things may not be material to share price, but they’re material to the way in which the company conducts itself generally in risk management.
” “From our perspective, the public access to court documents at the earliest instance is an important resource for investors, so that they can inform themselves about the trust and confidence of management,” added Paatsch. Super Retail Group has said that it conducted its own inquiries with the help of an external firm and found none of the allegations could be substantiated. Meanwhile, Paatsch has appeared to continue to show trust and confidence in the executives of another company – Nine – last month despite it releasing a third-party report that demonstrated clearly toxic culture.
In early October, before Nine management made available publicly a report by Intersection detailing inappropriate workplace behaviour among some employees at Nine, Ownership Matters released an advisory note to clients approving the re-election of Catherine West and WIN CEO Andrew Lancaster to the Nine board. It also recommended shareholder approval for the board’s remuneration report, reported The Australian. Paatsch’s advisory note only made a passing mention to the then upcoming Intersection report in two sentences.
One said the report existed. The other said: “The board has committed to transparently disclosing the findings of this report to investors in coming months upon release.” The intersection report turned out to be far more stinging in its assessments.
It found that more than half of all employees in the Broadcast Division (57 per cent) reported experiencing bullying, discrimination or harassment. Experiences of public humiliation, ‘white-anting’, belittling comments or conduct, and aggressive or intimidating behaviour were reportedly found to be commonplace and normalised. It found 52 per cent of Nine employees had experienced or witnessed abuses of power or authority.
Nearly half – 49 per cent – had experienced bullying, discrimination or harassment. Nearly a quarter spoke of sexual harassment. “We’re not Nostradamus,” he said on Monday.
“We published our report before Nine’s cultural review was released. It was impossible for us to know what was in it.” However, it was months prior that allegations at Nine began to surface.
It led to the departure of news boss Darren Wick and also Mike Sneesby stepping down from his role as CEO after three-and-a-half years in the role. The Intersection report surfaced three weeks prior to Nine’s AGM on November 7. However, Ownership Matters didn’t change its advice to clients about Nine and even now Paatsch reportedly says he still wouldn’t change his recommendations for the reappointments of West and Lancaster.
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