Victoria’s Secret has issued a statement against Australian retail billionaire Brett Blundy, a significant shareholder in the global lingerie company, over his plan to oust board chair Donna James and board member Mariam Naficy.
In a statement to shareholders this week, the Victoria’s Secret board called the move by Blundy and his overarching investment company BBRC a “distracting campaign”, which they believe appears to be in response to the board’s decision not to appoint him as a director.
“The board and management have engaged extensively with Mr. Blundy over several years,” Victoria’s Secret shared on its investor website. “Across these interactions, his primary focus has been to obtain a board seat for himself.”
According to the board, they conducted an independent evaluation of Blundy’s candidacy on two separate occasions.
Blundy, through BBRC, owns a 13 per cent stake in Victoria’s Secret. As well as this, Blundy has recently rolled out his own lingerie retail business recently called Leays, and is the chairman of low-price jeweller Lovisa, among other projects.
In his letter to Victoria’s Secret shareholders, Blundy shared concerns that the board’s interests “are not aligned with shareholders because of its limited financial exposure to the decisions it makes.”
“Over the duration of our investment, the company’s shares have underperformed the S&P 500 Consumer Discretionary Distribution & Retail Index by approximately 92 percentage points,” he noted. “We believe this underperformance has been driven by the board’s ineffective oversight of management, which led to the misallocation of $1.2 billion for poorly executed buybacks and M&A with little demonstrable return.”
In its retort, Victoria’s Secret told shareholders that it has taken decisive action to put the company on a new growth trajectory, including with the appointment of Hillary Super as CEO in late 2024. BBRC, in its letter, praised Super's work since joining the company.
Since announcing Super’s appointment, the company pointed out that it has delivered total shareholder returns of 164 per cent, outperforming the S&P 500 Consumer Discretionary Distribution & Retail Index by 124 per cent and the peers used by research analysts by 172 per cent.
“While the board is pleased with the strong progress in executing the company’s strategy, its number one priority is to continue driving this momentum.”
Over the last year, Victoria’s Secret’s share price has grown from a low of US$16 per share to around US$51.52.