6 questions asked at 2023 Ardent Leisure AGM
November 8, 2023
6 written questions lodged at 2023 Ardent Leisure hybrid AGM held on November 8 on the Gold Coast. The biggest protest vote was 5% against over-worked chair Gary Weiss. Was an excellent 2 hour meeting thanks to the probing question in the room from David and Charlie Kingston.
1. Gary Weiss is the long term CEO of Brisbane-based public company Ariadne and non-executive chair of Brisbane-based Cromwell, which has been a disaster for investors. Given Ardent's major assets are on the Gold Coast, can Gary explain how much of his time he spends in Queensland? How does he find the time to serve on 5 other boards, including being the non-executive chair of Estia Health. Why did he recently agree to join the Myer board when Ardent needs his attention? Isn't it time to lighten the work load?
Answer: not directly asked as other shareholders had raised it earlier. Chair Weiss did his usual defence.
2. Could Randy please comment on what he thinks about the material distributed by David Kingston to shareholders before the AGM and his observations at today's AGM. Does he have any concerns about the chairman's workload, including his inability to even physically attend today's AGM. Have the board discussed finding a chair who is not the most overloaded professional director in Australia?
Answer: not asked as operator Chris said it was asked on the wrong item. Wrong. I wanted to hear another director's view on the Weiss workload issue.
3. Have we had any discussions with BGH, the new private equity owners of Village Roadshow, in conjunction with the Kirby family. Doesn't it make sense to sell Dreamworld to Village and do we envisage there would be any ACCC, Gold Coast city council or Queensland Government concerns if that was proposed?
Answer: No.
4. In terms of the Gold Coast council when it comes to rates and the Queensland Government when it comes to land tax, what Capital Improved valuations are these 2 government agencies putting on our 55 hectare land holding at Dreamworld? Could the auditor also comment as to why the holding value of Dreamworld wasn't further written down given that the market capitalisation is at such a discount to book value.
Answer: government valuations not disclosed but we got a technical answer from someone - listen here.
5. Is the $4 million class action settlement figure mentioned by David Kingston in the ball park of what happened and was this covered by insurers, shareholders or a combination of the 2? Does the chair believe Australia's shareholder class actions regime needs to be reformed, in light of our experience or was the action justified in the circumstances?
Answer: question wrangler Chris explained that it was disclosed to the ASX and Gary Weiss declined to weigh in on class actions.
6. Are any proxy advisers covering us and does the chair agree with David Kingston that $1m is excessive for the CEO. The proxies are strongly in favour of this item, suggesting they don't have concerns. Are they also strongly in favour of the other items?
Answer: was censored to exclude the Kingston pay reference and chair Weiss said only 1 proxy adviser had issued a report and they had supported all items except his re-election due to workload concern.
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