Solomon Lew's company Premier Investments, a shareholder in Myer, has issued a letter to Myer shareholders today.
The latest missive is part of a long-running campaign to have the Myer board removed.
In it, the company alleges its board has handed over control to the banks and cost shareholders billions of dollars.
Here it is in full:
Dear fellow Myer shareholder,
I am writing to you again to seek your support in bringing the failed Myer Board to account for the destruction they have caused to this once great Australian retail icon.
As you know, thousands of you voted at the 2017 Myer AGM to give the Myer Board a “first strike” due to the dismal performance of the company and Board.
If shareholders join forces again and do the same at the 2018 AGM on 30 November, the entire Board will face a motion to be spilled. This will potentially provide the opportunity to vote in a new highly-credentialed set of experienced directors.
Myer is our company - it belongs to us, the shareholders. Yet the current Board has treated it as a personal piggy bank, taking excessive fees while they destroy our investment in Myer.
For example, the Chairman, Mr Garry Hounsell, having sacked the CEO, Richard Umbers, accepted the role of Myer Executive Chairman earning the equivalent rate of $1 million per annum. Yet Mr Hounsell had no retail experience and no relevant credentials to take the position, let alone the exorbitant remuneration.
The Board’s lack of retail experience has put Myer in its current predicament. And now the failed Myer Board has committed to a new deal with its banking syndicate which is all about protecting the interests of the banks.
The failed Myer Board recently decided that, to protect their own personal positions, they would grant the banks a charge on all Myer’s assets. The banks have never had this right in the past, but now they do - thanks to the weak and failed Myer Board.
To add insult to injury, the banks have very significantly increased their fees for the Myer facility and substantially restricted Myer’s usage of cash.
Banks normally only require these major changes in facilities where they are worried about the future viability of the borrower.
Equally, Boards of companies only accept these types of banking facility changes where they do not know what else to do.