Virgin Australia has kicked off its annual general meeting in Brisbane today by instructing its lawyers to consider the false allegations made against it by Qantas Group CEO Alan Joyce concerning its $300 million + capital raising program involving its three major airline shareholders, Air New Zealand, Etihad and Singapore Airlines.
Chairman Neil Chatfield announced the legal brief before the company’s CEO and former senior Qantas executive John Borghetti, took to the podium.
Virgin Australia says the claims made in an emotive letter to government and email to staff by Joyce are completely false, and it takes them, and their possible consequences, very seriously.
More may be heard on this topic during the meeting and a subsequent press conference.
However the early discussion from the floor was a grilling of the chair, Chatfield, by Australian Shareholders Association representative and activist and Crikey founder Stephen Mayne over alleged strategic dilution of small retail shareholder interests by the non-renounceable capital raising offer.
Chatfield denied the allegation, saying it was designed to be equally attractive to all shareholders. He said it was too early to discuss a question as to whether it was a case of all three strategic airline investors gaining a board seat, or none of them. He further rejected the proposition that there would be an unprecedented change of control in the board to the determinent of the independence of the company or the rights of its small shareholders.
