McCann nomination to Scentre board continues curious nominations.

At Scentre Group’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) this year in April, shareholders will be voting on the election to the board of Steven McCann, who was appointed to the board on 1 November 2022 as an independent director. We recommend voting against McCann’s election, as we believe he is an inappropriate choice for a role in governing this company. This position is based on his track record of demonstrating ineffective corporate strategy and execution as CEO of Lendlease.

During McCann’s tenure at Lendlease a fundamentally poor decision to invest in a civil construction business resulted in the high risk and low margin business significantly altering the risk profile of Lendlease as a business. The manner in which the company finally disclosed the difficulties and losses in the engineering business was characterised by delay, a lack of transparency and selective disclosure about project delays and losses. McCann was also unable to capitalise on being CEO during one of the strongest residential cycles in recent memory, with Lendlease’s earnings failing to deliver commensurate returns during that period.

Overall, we believe this appointment is another poor choice by the Nominating Committee and the Chairman, following the appointment of Catherine Brenner in April 2022 as an independent director. Resolution Capital voted against Brenner’s election given revelations of poor judgement and governance oversight, during her time as AMP Chair. These revelations arose during the Australian Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry in 2018, relating to influencing an independent report to the regulator and governance oversight related to unethical treatment of clients in the “fees for no service” scandal.

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