SkyePharma chairman under siege from rebel investors |
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Sun, 22 Jan 2006 18:05
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LONDON - The founder and chairman of SkyePharma, Ian Gowrie-Smith is under siege as rebel shareholders in the struggling drug development company are gunning for his head.
North Atlantic Value, Insight Investment and Morley Fund Management are the rebel investors, who want Gowrie-Smith to be replaced by Bob Thian, who is currently the chairman of the drugs testing company Whatman. The three investors will resort to an emergency meeting later this week to call for Gowrie-Smith's ouster. Between them, they have a collective 20 percent to the company's stock, but other investors including Legal & General and Fidelity, which has 12 percent shares are also believed to be interested in bumping Mr. Gowrie-Smith.
The main trigger for such a move was the fact that the company was hunting around for two executives without informing shareholders. "The share price has gone from £1 to 44p over the past five years, which is pretty shocking," one shareholder was quoted as telling The Telegraph.
"In the meantime, Gowrie-Smith's shareholding has gone from around 10 per cent to less than 1 per cent - that doesn't show commitment." Meanwhile further damage could be done by the emergence of the fact that the chairman's family was renting out a New York apartment to the company at an annual cost of $720,000 (£407,000).
The apartment, which is located close to Central Park, is on an eight-year tenancy and rents are expected to jump to $942,500 after August 2008. A company spokesman defended the renting of the property by saying, "It was a practical solution made several years ago to accommodate the executives of SkyePharma when they travel to New York." But the rebel shareholders are unlikely to be of the same view. All in all it’s going to be a stormy week for SkyePharma.
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