Solomon Lew adds pressure on Myer board with request for Premier Investments director to join

Retail king Solomon Lew’s march on department store Myer is continuing in earnest, pushing for a vote to appoint one of his key lieutenants to the department store’s board.

In a statement to the Australian Securities Exchange on Thursday, Myer announced it had received notice from Premier Investments for a vote at its annual general meeting to propose the election of Terrence McCartney to Myer’s board.

Mr McCartney is a non-executive director at Premier and one of its major subsidiaries, Just Group, which runs mall mainstay Just Jeans.

Premier — whose brands also include Smiggle, Portmans, Dotti and Peter Alexander — declined to comment when contacted by The West Australian.

Thursday’s announcement follows notice earlier this month that two Lew entities, Metalgrove and Century Plaza, had acquired a combined 24.5 million Myer shares, pushing voting power up to 22.87 per cent from 19.88 per cent.

Myer has been under siege for years from Premier and Mr Lew, who has repeatedly criticised Myer’s performance and the direction of the company.

Most notably, he claimed the scalp of former board chair Garry Hounsell, who quit just hours before the company’s 2020 annual general meeting and, labelling Myer’s sales performance “disastrous and shameful”, demanded the full board follow Mr Hounsell.

Mr Lew last year secured a spill vote against the board, though it was ultimately unsuccessful, and a second strike against the remuneration report.

Myer’s board of five has been chaired since October 2020 by JoAnne Stephenson, a director of the company since 2016. The most recent addition since Mr Lew’s attempted spill is former Murray Goulburn chief executive Ari Mervis, who joined last September.

Premier is presenting its annual results in late September, while Myer is yet to schedule a date for its earnings presentation.