Gradipore faces shareholder-driven rebellion

Just weeks after a new CEO was appointed, embattled bioseparations company Gradipore has lost almost its entire board of directors in a shareholder-driven rebellion against the management of the company.

At yesterday's annual general meeting, shareholders voted to remove three of the four directors up for re-election, keeping only John Manusu -- who has been both managing director and executive chairman of the company in the past -- on the board. Former director Howard (Perry) Manusu was also elected back onto the board.

Robert Lieb and Leslie Webb soon tendered their own resignations from the board, joining John Eady, Peter Jenkins and Colin Sutton; and Jeremy Davis announced his intention to resign at Monday's board meeting.

New CEO Greg Pynt, who said at the time of his appointment that he hoped to bring a more commercial focus to the struggling company, also tendered his resignation, effective immediately.

A spokesperson for the company said that there was no comment at this time.

But remaining director John Manusu said the action came as a result of widespread dissatisfaction among shareholders.

"It [the meeting] took a long time, but at the end of the day, we saw shareholder democracy in action," he told Australian Biotechnology News. "The discontent with the performance of the board came to a head."

Manusu said that the new board would be announced on Monday after the board meeting, and that a plan to turn the company around would be outlined.

Earlier this year, Manusu announced intentions to hold a general meeting of shareholders, but later cancelled his plans.

In his speech to the disgruntled shareholders yesterday, Davis blamed the disappointing performance of the company in the 2002-2003 financial year on three risky strategies that did not pay off for the company. The company had hoped to limit its cash burn to AUD$10 million over the year, but instead the net loss blew out to $16.7 million.

According to Davis, the problems included an expansion of the gel business that caused manufacturing quality issues that still have not been completely resolved, a poorly targeted launch of the new BF400 instrument, and failure to achieve a significant licensing agreement with the sale of GF100 instrument into the plasma and blood fractionation market.

Before a trading halt was put into place, Gradipore's share prince fell AUD$0.09 to $0.45.