jHunt, I agree with your 1st para comments however strongly disagree that is not not about berating the Board. Their appointments of and financial remuneration packages to both outgoing and incoming CEO's, defies the professional decision making skills of the most lateral thinking person. The former CEO openly stated hat I am not here to operate the roller coaster; I am here to make sure that people queue up and want to spend their money to take a ride on it.
The company previously announced that Ms Thomaswould take up a
new role as chief customer officer and chief operating officer from July.
However, that has now changed, and she will no longer be employed by the company after she finishes her role as CEO.
Instead, Ms Thomas has entered a "transitional consultancy agreement" with Ardent Leisure. In its announcement to the market, Ardent Leisure explained, "Ms Thomas will provide ongoing support to the CEO, senior management and Board of Ardent in respect of the pending Coronial Inquiry into the Dreamworld tragedy" and wills will be paid a consultancy fee of $3,000 per day, for each day reasonably expanded in relation to the coronial inquest.
Allan Goldin from the Australian Shareholders' Association said Ms Thomas' payout was normal practice and she should not be held entirely responsible for the company's poor handling of the Dreamworld tragedy. "The then chairman handled it extremely badly also," he said. "The big mistake that they made was their AGM was four days after the Dreamworld tragedy … or three days after. "They should have opened the AGM, the chairman should have then immediately said, 'We are now going to go and adjourn this AGM for a month, two months — whatever — because it's not appropriate to hold the AGM at this time after the tragedy that just occurred'. "That would have eliminated a whole lot of the poor media that they got. "That was the chairman who made that mistake. Not her."
Former Ardent CFO Richard Johnson saw the writing on the wall and left the group to return to the UK.
As Homer Simpson would sayD'oh or in this case D'uh (Annoyed grunt).
Yours, one sad long suffering shareholder.
