Victoria Carpet's chief ousted at meeting after boardroom coup
The battle for control of a historic Midland carpet firm has seen its chairwoman ousted after a boadroom coup ?– while one of the firm's founding family members returns.
Alexander Anton, a former chairman of Kidderminster's Victoria Carpets was voted back at a general meeting in Birmingham yesterday.
A member of the founding family, he said he wants to see the business grow and increase profitability.
Mr Anton and new Australian executive chairman Geoff Wilding and new director Andrew Harrison replace chairwoman Katherine Innes Ker and David Garman who were voted out.
Mr Wilding, who resigned from the board along with Mr Anton when an incentive scheme they proposed was turned down, promised that they would meet with the regional officer of union Community to discuss shop floor workers' concerns for the future of the 117-year-old firm which employs about 300 in the town.
Speaking after the meeting Mr Wilding said his consortium's victory was "pretty overwhelming" and its shareholder support had gone up.
He will also be talking to MD Alan Bullock, who was voted off the board at the recent annual general meeting about his plans.
Mr Wilding said that once the new directors had settled in they would be putting forward a new incentive scheme to shareholders.
They also want to move the company from the London Stock Exchange to the cheaper AIM exchange.
Mr Anton said: "There are no plans to come in and create large scale redundancies or liquidate the business. We want to grow the business and increase its profitability.
Mrs Innes Ker told the meeting the board had done everything possible to give all shareholders the opportunity to vote because it had a large number of private shareholders.
