A director of crisis-hit transport company Go-Ahead has had to step down after the company was told that his narrow re-election was a mistake.
The Newcastle-based rail and bus firm has been plunged into crisis in recent months after it admitted last year that it had not declared £25m of funding relating to the London & South Eastern Railway (LSER) contract.
The company is facing a fine from the Government and has had to suspend trading of its shares after being unable to meet a deadline to file its financial results, which had already been delayed once before.
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Shareholders vented their frustration at Go-Ahead’s AGM just before Christmas by voting 47% against the re-election of director Adrian Ewer, who had been senior independent director and chair of the company’s audit committee.
But now it has revealed that an error by its registrar meant that 3.2m proxy votes submitted by shareholders had not been counted. Taking those votes into account, Mr Ewer would have been voted out at the AGM and so he has now left the board.
Go-Ahead’s statement said: “The company has been informed by its registrar, Equiniti, that they have discovered an error in the collection of certain proxy votes submitted in relation to the resolutions put to shareholders at the Annual General Meeting held on 21 December 2021. As a result of Equiniti’s error, approximately 3.2m proxy votes validly submitted by shareholders were not included in the vote count produced by the registrar.
“Had these votes been included in the vote count, Resolution 4 to re-elect Adrian Ewer as a director of the company would have received fewer than 50% of votes in favour and, therefore, he would not have been re-elected as a director of the company. The outcomes in relation to the other resolutions put to the AGM would not have been affected by this error and those resolutions would still have been approved by the requisite majority of shareholders.
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“In light of this, Adrian Ewer will step down from the board with immediate effect.
“In line with previously announced succession plans, Dominic Lavelle and David Blackwood, who were appointed to the roles of audit committee chair designate and senior independent director designate respectively on 1 January 2022, will now assume the roles of audit committee chair and senior independent director respectively with immediate effect.”
The Department for Transport (DfT) stripped Go-Ahead of the busy LSER route – which covers South East England, including London, Kent and East Sussex – in October. The company’s chief financial officer, Elodie Brian, resigned after the decision to take over the franchise was announced.
The company had run the LSER contract as part of a joint venture with French group Keolis, having a two-thirds stake in the JV.
It is aiming to file its financial results by the end of this month.