Victoria calls for ‘no’ vote

TROUBLED carpet manufacturer Victoria has posted a circular to shareholders advising them to vote against proposals to elect a new board.

A group of former non-executive board directors – including Alexander Anton, the man who led the consortium that seized control of the Kidderminster firm earlier this year – has forced the company to convene a general meeting and proposes the removal of existing directors and their replacement with him and two others.

Following a row over potential bonus payments, Anton and fellow non-executive board directors Sir Bryan Nicholson and Geoffrey Wilding resigned from the board.

Now the requisitioners want to remove directors Katherine Innes Ker, Roger Hoyle and David Garman and any directors appointed after August 13 and to appoint Anton, Wilding and Andrew Harrison as directors.

Innes Ker – who as well as being a director is Victoria’s chairman, having joined the board following the Anton-led coup earlier this year – said the incentive scheme proposed by the former directors is not in the best interests of all shareholders.
A stormy annual general meeting last week left the firm with just one director in post.

The meeting saw shareholders oust both group managing director Alan Bullock and the managing director of the Australian division Barry Poynter, together with Garman and Hoyle.

The cull means Anton and Wilding could now get re-elected at a special general meeting on October 3 at the Hilton Birmingham Metropole Hotel at the NEC.

But in a statement to the Stock Exchange today Victoria, which operates Westwood Yarns in Holmfirth, says it has advised shareholders to vote against the proposal to remove existing directors and replace them with Anton, Wilding and Andrew Harrison.