Nichol is new PGW chair
A day after the ouster of PGG Wrightson’s chair and his deputy, the listed rural trader’s board has appointed John Nichol as the new independent chair.
Hai, who stepped down as chair earlier this month, won’t be seeking reelection at PGW’s annual shareholders meeting later this year.
A PGW filing with the New Zealand Stock Exchange last week said Hai was resigning “in order to eliminate the ongoing distraction caused due to media and market attention regarding the securities regulation matters that he is defending in Singapore”.
While Hai said he did not consider that those matters affected his capacity to remain a PGW director, he nevertheless felt that it was in the best interests of the company that he step down.
Hai has also stepped down from the PGW audit committee effective immediately; acting chair, U Kean Seng will join the audit committee.
On June 30, PGW announced that Hai had been charged in Singapore under certain Singaporean securities regulation in respect to potential lapses in relevant disclosures related to a Singaporean listed company, Hyflux Limited. Hai is a director of Hyflux. The PGW board decided the related investigations did not compromise the performance of Hai’s duties in relation to PGW and that he was to continue as board chair.
However, a week later the company announced that Hai was stepping aside as chair but will remain as a board member. It had determined that it would be “in the best interests of PGW for Seng to assume the role of acting chair while the investigations and charges relating to Hai remain ongoing”.
According to PGW’s website, Hai has been a director of the company since 2017 and chair since July last year. Hai was appointed an independent director of Agria Corporation in 2018. Agria, a global agricultural company, owns 44% of PGW.
