John Cheston has come back swinging after Premier Investments chair Solomon Lew laid out allegations of being intoxicated while working and gambling with staff, as well as bullying and harassment, against a “mob” that included the former CEO of Smiggle.
During a press briefing over Premier Investments’ recent FY25 trading update, which showed that Peter Alexander sales grew while Smiggle sales fell, Lew went on a tangent after being asked about product and execution between both brands.
On execution, Lew said there was an issue at Smiggle, which culminated in the termination of Cheston’s role. This included the forfeiting of Cheston’s $3.8 million bonus.
Lew then said that the investigation is ongoing and that it is “very serious”.
“It has many elements to the investigation, and it's a very unfortunate circumstance, as a result of people being paid to be at work [but] doing other things, and not being at work, and being absent from their jobs, and spending time being intoxicated and gambling with staff in the organisation,” Lew shared.
The Premier chair added that he and his team have done a lot of work, including investigating its people and culture department, where he claimed people were being bullied and sexually harassed, and that was never reported. He also alleged interference “by the CEO of that department”.
“There's a long list of situations, so we're having to work through that, and that's why we're very, very particular in the choice of the [new] CEO going forward and the capabilities of that CEO in relation to managing the staff.” According to Lew, around 80 people in the head office work on Smiggle.
When asked to confirm whether these allegations are directed at Cheston himself or to a group of people, Lew declined to comment any further, but noted there were a few people who were “dragged into this mob”.
Since the allegations came to light, Cheston’s law firm Giles/George shared a statement on behalf of Cheston with several media outlets including Ragtrader, saying he had declined Premier's offer to lead a separately listed Smiggle business and instead resigned to accept a CEO role for another publicly listed retail company.
The other company is Lovisa, where Cheston is now CEO.
A spokesperson for Cheston said his decision to move to Lovisa appears to be what Premier is unable to move past, describing Lew’s allegations as a “rant” that was “simply untrue”.
“Mr Cheston has moved on, and Premier should do the same,” they said.
In the same press conference, Ragtrader asked Lew about the CEO succession following Cheston’s exit in September last year, and on the solidification of a group CEO for Premier Retail. Currently, John Bryce is running as interim CEO, with no CEO lead yet named for Smiggle.
Lew said that Bryce is doing an outstanding job, and noted that splitting the company – Premier has been alluding to splitting Smiggle and Peter Alexander into separate entities – may not be feasible at this point in time, as a new hire “would not have been able to follow all the road maps that needed to be followed all the way through.”
“In time, it depends on what we do with the company and the growth of the company,” Lew said. “But there's no urgency for that. It's not our priority list. Our priority list is a CEO for Smiggle. No question about that.
“We're looking for the person with the right international experience as such, and a person that can negotiate in every country that we want to be in and build that business with a partnership. We have a few of those partners already, and they're working pretty well.
“We know the value of that, and we do want to go in capital light. So if we go into Africa or Congo or Nigeria or Peru or wherever the case may be, we want to go in with the right partners and understand their seasonal operation and with a seasoned retailer. So we're not looking for people who want to go into business because they see Smiggle as an opportunity; it has to be a seasoned retailer.”