SAIONARA SOLLY?

Just posted on CRIKEY.COM.AU.

IT'S SIONARA SOLLY

Keep an eye on this link folks as the results of the Coles Myer board election will be up here shortly:
http://asx.com.au/asx/statistics/AnnHeadersForIssuer.jsp?method=get&TimeFrame=past_week&ASXCode=cml

It looks like the might of the Myer family, the Coles Myer Employee Share Plan and all those institutions ranging from AMP to QIC have toppled a billionaire.

However, at this point we only know the votes lodged by proxy 48 hours before the meeting.

Solly got 267 million proxy votes in favour, 294 million against and the chairman was voting 50 million open proxies against him.

This left Solly at 267m vs 344m but the silly old chairman Rick Allert did not disclose the open proxies held by people other than him.

The proxies only accounted for about 610 million of the 1.1 billion shares on issue. So there are about 500 million shares held unaccounted for and if these include the 100 million shares that Solly controls then he could yet scrape back in. However, the fact that Solly scampered out the back door and hinted he'd lost during his speech suggests that his 100 million shares were voted in the proxies. You don't usually get large chunks of stock voted from the floor but there might have been large open proxy votes used from the floor and people who vote by proxy can also revoke their vote on the day.

We had two and a half hours of general debate about the accounts which Sir Ron Brierley got up and said was a complete waste of time.

Then each of the 11 candidates were invited to take the lectern for about five minutes before fielding questions. Four of them failed to show.

Crikey's mate Peter Sheppard did the best of the outsiders with 66.4 million votes in favour and 233 million against before including the 80 million open proxies held by the chairman that also went against him.

Sheppo copped about seven questions so the resolution dealing with the election of directors dragged on for an additional two hours and 40 minutes before the five hour affair finally wound up at 3.10pm.

Solly was on his feet for about 40 minutes and was questioned by 20 different shareholders with the meeting broadly split.

However, I suspect the majority of the people who spoke for Solly or attacked other individual directors were stooges. I was the sixth person who spoke on the accounts and said that three of the first four were probably stooges. Afterall, even Michael Kroger's right hand man Jason Aldworth got up and sprayed the director sitting next to Solly, Patty Akopiantz. Cash for questions is just another insight into Solly's ethics.

I got up and asked about ten questions in total and Solly didn't take too kindly to it.

"I don't subscribe to your rubbish," was his opening salvo as he went on to apportion part of the blame for Yannon to PWC and Freehills, which are both still engaged by Coles Myer.

He refused to disclose the proxies he held but said every proxy he received was passed on so there was no filtering of the proxies against him.

After 127,000 shareholders replied to his yellow form, an additional 43,000 shareholders voted by proxy back to the company so Solly was able to gloat he had a mandate with 170,000 households supporting him.

Unfortunately, that leaves as many as 390,000 shareholders who opposed him and when I asked him to name one prominent Australian who was backing him, Solly claimed the 170,000 small shareholders were prominent.

Solly was also happy to spray former mate Nick Greiner when I referred to his comments about Solly getting off the board. "He should look at his own record," was Solly's response.

Solly's mate threatened a defamation writ against a "Mr Paris" and kept on arguing he was a totally independent director. What a load of rot. Leibler was at the frontline of defending Yannon and has been a mate a legal adviser to Solly for decades. That is not what you call independent.

Unfortunately, the board's open proxies saved Leibler's neck and he's back on the board for another 3 years. The proxies went 276 million in his favour, 256 million against, but he was saved by the 80 million open proxies that were held by the chairman that went in his favour.

In other words, the chairman's open proxies have proved the difference between Leibler getting back and Solly getting rolled.

nq