Just wanted fellow Stocko readers thoughts on a Scapa (which I hold ) who released the following RNS late Friday afternoon.
Scapa Group plc (AIM: SCPA) announces that Juliet Thompson, Non-Executive Director, has today resigned from the Board with effect from 30 June 2019.
What concerns me is that she only joined the board less than 6 months ago (Jan 2019) , is it not very unusual that she should resign within 6 months essentially with immediate effect.
I may be reading too much in to this but this is most unusual naturally I hope it is not health related . Any thoughts from more experienced investors would be helpful .
Thanks
Interesting question Tony, it is certainly at least "unusual".
Worth looking at a rough timeline I think.
01-Oct-18 : Scapa completes acquistion of Systagenix Wound Management.
Nov-18 : Convatec raises concerns with Scapa over breach of a non-compete clause. (Not disclosed to the market at the time)
21-Jan-19 : Juliet Thompson appointed NED.
18-Apr-19 : Serious negotiations between Scapa & Convatec begin. (Not disclosed)
21-May-19 : Negotiations broken off (Not disclosed)
21-May-19 : Scapa CEO announces he is stepping down.
03-Jun-19 : Scapa announces that Convatec have unilaterally cancelled their agreement (probable litigation to follow).
10-Jun-19 : Scapa CEO will stay on after all - presumably to clean up the 'mess' (of his own making?)
28-Jun-19 : Juliet Thompson resigns.
Amongst other things JT was appointed to the 'Audit and Risk Committee', so one possibleexplanation is that she had concerns about this whole Convatec / Scapa issue and did not feel that she could support the boards approach nor work with them on this.
Whilst there might be some 'neutral' reasons for her departing I cannot think of any 'positive' ones, so for me the existence of this possible negative interpretation is a further red flag.
I don't think it has been linked here on Stockopedia (and I hope it is not a breach of etiquette) but there is some really useful background, that I have used here, provided in an excellent article by Alistair Blair over at sharescope.
