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When Vocus chairman Vaughan Bowen told his leadership team that he was stepping down as the chairman of junior telecommunications group Vocus on Tuesday, he joked he was looking forward to becoming one of those "pesky shareholders busting their balls".
No doubt Bowen and his team know exactly what that feels like, particularly after the last eight days, during which Vocus removed chief executive Geoff Horth and then handed Bowen's job to deputy chair Bob Mansfield, the former Telstra chairman.
To mangle a famous Oscar Wilde quote, to lose a chief executive may be regarded as misfortune, but to lose a chairman a week later looks like carelessness.
But Bowen insists there is a logic here. Â
Having decided Horth should go to give the company some clear air, Bowen said he sat down with Mansfield and asked him if he was up for the chairman's job.
Mansfield was already in charge of finding Horth's replacement, and Bowen argued that it would be better if the new CEO didn't have a chairman with ties to the past. Mansfield agreed, and the board did too.Â
Handing over the reinsÂ
Clearly the shareholders of Vocus are keen for change after a horror 18 months in which the company's share price has fallen from a peak of $9.29 in mid 2016 to the current level of $2.38. The stock rose 5.5 per cent on Tuesday. Â
The company has suffered through a terrible case of post-M&A; blues after struggling to digest more than $5.8 billion of acquisitions and mergers in the past three years. The most notable of these was the $3.8 billion combination of Vocus and M2, which Bowen founded and Horth ran.
But Bowen insists that his departure was not a decision driven by upset investors, and says the company's shareholders are understanding of the work that needs to be done to turn the business around.
Still, more than a few market observers have noted that since January the Vocus board has included John Ho, the founder of Hong Kong based fund Janchor Partners. The change since then – and particularly the ending of the M2 era – has been extraordinary.
Bowen says he will have no problems handing over the reins and, despite his joke about being a pesky shareholder, he doesn't plan to be interfering with the recovery that Mansfield and the new chief executive will need to push ahead with.
But he remains a Vocus believer, pointing out he spent almost $250,000 on shares late last year. He described the company's assets and share price as undervalued.
That may be, but convincing the market to re-rate the business will take time.
James ThomsonÂ
j.thomson@fairfaxmedia.com.au