Guess who’s back? A year after the boardroom at Stobart Group saw more changes that gears on one of its Volvo FH’s the woman at the heart of it all is back. Avril Palmer-Baunack, formerly chief executive of Autologic and – post-acquisition - formerly executive chairman of Stobart Group, has returned to the industry. She takes the reigns as non-executive chairman at telematics firm Quartix.
The vehicle tracking supplier is a firm on the up: it has just reported a turnover increase of 60% to £13m and it installed more than 40,000 tracking systems in the UK in 2013. “I am very pleased to join Quartix and excited by the potential that it has for further development in both the fleet and insurance sectors,” said Palmer-Baunack in a statement.
We’d be curious to get Palmer-Baunack’s view on her old employers. Eddie Stobart Logistics could go private as soon as next month, after Stobart Group sold a 51% stake in the business to Douglasbay Capital fir £280.8m.
Andrew Tinkler, CEO of Stobart of the divestment: "This is a further stage in delivering our strategy of creating and realising value for our shareholders. Moving forward, we are focused on capitalising on the opportunities in our Infrastructure and Support Services Divisions, enhanced by investment in Stobart Green Energy."
Hang on. Haven’t we been here before? In the chaos of the first three months of 2013 Palmer-Baunack ascended to the executive chairman role at Stobart Group to “deliver the inherent value of our business”, in Tinkler’s words.
It was reported that fund management firm Invesco had been influential in Palmer-Baunack’s promotion, with head of equity Neil Woodford allegedly personally backing it. Not that they were officially commenting on that strategy. Invesco at the time owned 36.69% of all shares in Stobart Group.
If Invesco had supported Palmer-Baunack’s rise to the top at Stobart Group it was address one of the main issues with Stobart Group – that its portfolio is too widely spread.
The euphemism is “portfolio rationalisation”. That meant that Stobart Group could have been set to pursue a strategy to put some of its assets up for sale, including the transport business but also London Southend airport and Carlisle Lake District airport.
Palmer-Baunack left in May 2013 because, in the words of the company, “her role was no longer appropriate”. This was widely interpreted as Tinkler exerting his influence at the Group, realising shareholder value from Stobart’s many interests as a combined group.
Clearly, that interpretation was incorrect. Furthermore Stobart’s privatisation has been widely welcomed as an eminently sensible route by some of the largest private hauliers in the UK. So what was the reason behind Palmer-Baunack’s swift rise and even swifter departure?