Consultants slam Stock Exchange

Sunday Business Post - 30 May 2004
Michael Murray

A leading firm of corporate governance consultants, Manifest, has slammed the failure of the Irish Stock Exchange to act on breaches of exchange listing rules.

Manifest, which advises many top fund managers and institutional investors on corporate governance issues, has criticised the exchange for its failure to take prompt and appropriate action in connection with a breach by the Kerry Group of Listing Rule 16.20 (a) last year.

The rule in question says that ``a company must ensure that at all times not more than one-third of its board of directors is composed of persons who have been co-opted to the board.''

In January last year Kerry co-opted ten directors following a company acquisition and, as such, they were in breach of the listing rules for several months.

The rules go on to state that in the event of a breach of 16.20 (a) the company is required to convene an extraordinary general meeting (EGM) within ten days to deal with the issue.

This was not observed. Alan Brett of Manifest said the fact that the issue was not picked up by the Stock Exchange reflected badly on them.

``Institutional fund managers should also have picked up on it,'' he said.

A spokesman for the Stock Exchange said that it was not their policy to comment on any single company situation.

A Kerry Group spokesman said that the issue of the gap between co-option of directors in January 2003 and the AGM on May 25 2003 had now come to light and was a technical breach of the Stock Exchange's rules.

``The election of the directors concerned was unanimously approved at the AGM which regularised the situation,'' they said.

Return to News Index