‘It’s been a bad investment’: Nine’s Catherine West and Matt Stanton grilled at shareholders meeting
Nine Entertainment chair, Catherine West, faced angry shareholders at the company’s AGM on Thursday, as close to 40% voted against its executive remuneration report.
Not surprisingly, both West – who had a 17% vote against her re-election – and acting CEO, Matt Stanton, addressed a number of concerns off the bat, including the workplace cultural review findings, the massive drop in market capitalisation of Nine and Domain, and the loss of funding from social media giants.
RELATED: Catherine West to remain Nine chair as the search for a CEO continues
Speaking to the 45% drop in market value since January, West admitted Nine was “extremely disappointed with the market – of both Domain and Nine,” while Stanton told shareholders that, “like you, we are disappointed by the market valuation of Nine, which seems too heavily focused on our traditional television business while largely ignoring the digital growth opportunity of our key assets across publishing, streaming, audio and marketplaces”.
Catherine West
“Something is wrong with Domain,” K Capital analyst Charlie Kingston said.
“Arguably, it’s been a bad investment for Nine,” before asking about “the future of that [60%] stake?”
West admitted the investment hasn’t “brought the increase in the core business that we planned”.
Shareholders also rallied against Nine’s reliance on gambling advertising.
Tim Costello, noted anti-gambling advocate, and brother of former Nine chair Peter, took aim at the network, saying: “Parents are desperately worried they’ll have to explain to 10-year-olds what a multi is,” he said.
“No other generation of parent has ever had to do that.”
Matt Stanton
Another shareholder pointed at data that found 72% of parents want gambling advertising ban.
“They want their kids to stop being groomed by gambling during sport,” a shareholder said, to which West replied: “We are very conscious of our responsibility to the community.”
Nine executive were also dealt a severe performance review when they copped a 37.4% vote against the executive remuneration report.
Despite the horror year, both West and Stanton were resolute that change is coming.
“As a board and management team we are completely united in changing behaviours so all our people have a safe place to work,” West said about the cultural issues at the network.
Regarding the 12% drop in earnings, West said: “We have a strategic and operational review under way,” and that Nine was “working on a project to improve the efficiency of the overall business”.
Stanton pointed to the success of “Australia’s leading business publication”, the AFR, adding: “It remains the most profitable masthead in the group, the value of which is not well understood by the market.”
Nine’s own market update, released before the AGM, was more muted with the note reading: “While we remain more optimistic about the second half of FY25, we are seeing no tangible signs of improvement to date.”
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Nathan Jolly is the Features Editor at Mumbrella. He joined the team in July, 2023.
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