This article is from the Australian Property Journal archive
TRINITY'S chairman Brett Heading said he has trouble understanding why anybody would want to be in his shoes at the moment.
In a very candid Annual General Meeting last Friday, Heading who along with managing director Chris Morton took the job 99 days ago, indicated they had not realise what they were getting into.
“Tomorrow morning when I wake up assuming I am re-elected today (and I do have trouble understanding why anyone else would actually want the role at the moment),” he said.
Heading said he walked into a company in crisis.
“I am not saying that to be melodramatic,” he added.
He emphasised that from an investor’s wealth perspective, Trinity has been a sad sad journey.
He said whilst Trinity has suffered dramatically because of the global financial crisis, it pointed that a series of internally issues seriously impacted the reputation of the company in the eyes of security holders and its investors.
“In case you have been living in cave over the last 12 months… let me briefly highlight some of the issues that have impacted upon Trinity,”
In October last year, the company made a payment of $1 million to Veritate which is now subject to a Court action. In November, CFO Kerry Armstrong resigned and the former director Don O’Rorke made a discounted takeover offer of 80 cents.
Later CEO Ben McCarthy and head of property Bruce Baker resigned and the duo from QIC Real Estate Laurie Brindle and Steve Leigh who were appointed to assume those positions, resigned only four months into the job.
Leigh was later appointed joint managing director with Chris Morton.
“I often asked what went wrong to a company… Let me highlight three points. There were certainly various clashes of personalities.
“I suspect there was a clash of cultures when the developer culture of Consolidated Properties merged with Trinity which at that time was a conservative custodian of public funds.
“The project partner model which had worked so successfully for so long in the private Consolidated Properties group had its limitations in the public company area,” Heading said.
Heading forecast its net tangible assets will range between 22 and 27 cents, which is below the previous August market advice of 38 cents. This is due of the further deterioration of assets values.
“Our focus will be on being boring and stable, which I confess are not two words customarily associated with Trinity in recent years,” he concluded.
Australian Property Journal
