Vic, I think the new director has been appointed as part of an...

Vic,

I think the new director has been appointed as part of an expanded board to provide additional governance oversight (I have been of the view for some time that the board - numbering just 3 directors - was a bit light-on.)

I think the GXL legacy will be shown to be one of two halves; the successful period when it was a pure veterinary practice roll-up story, and then the period, commencing in late 2014, when hubris appears to have got the better of the company's senior brass and they decided to get more aggressively involved in retailing which, while it may have been retailing targeted at pet owners (at least, that's how it was pitched to the market, with the argument that it was still related to the companies core business), was still retailing.

And - to my mind - retailing (irrespective of the products being retailed) requires a different skillset altogether to healing the family pet!

And yet GXL went ahead and made a very substantial - indeed, a company-transforming - acquisition at what felt to me was a very fulsome valuation multiple.

Had I been a GXL shareholder at the time of the acquisition of the WA pet retailing business (I forget its name), I suspect I would have had experienced some feelings of dismay and exasperation.

At any rate, that Dr Richards was on the board of GXL during both the smart and - what I believe to be - the dumb strategic decisions made by that company's executive collective, is quite incidental insofar as ONT is concerned, I am quite sure.

For the growth strategy at ONT will continue to be dictated by the guy who owns over 60% of the company, duly aided and abetted by his chairman who has presided over proceedings for almost the entire company's listed life: Verily, no incoming NED will have much bearing in altering the course that is plotted by Messrs Holmes and Jones.

Make no mistake, if you buy shares in ONT, you do so on the basis the Dr Holmes doesn't have any great rushes of blood to the head (or, for that matter, gets run over by a bus!)

For he is quite the key person (with all the risks that go with that).

In summary, I reckon Dr Richards will help with the administrative workload of the board, and will be a valuable sounding board to the Chairman and CEO, but the sole hand firmly on the tiller will continue to be that of the evidently trustworthy Daryl Holmes.