Victoria AGM Report Summary – Chickens home to roost

After last year’s battles for control of this company, yesterday’s Annual General Meeting was a tepid affair (see past ShareSoc press releases and AGM Forum  reports for more information on the past fights).

Apart from the depressed state of the retail carpet sector, the wholly unnecessary exceptional costs incurred in that battle, and the subsequent restructuring of the business (which was long overdue in my opinion) resulted in an overall loss of £2.7m for the year ending March 2013. Revenue fell from £77m in the prior year to £71m. As new Executive Chairman Geoff Wilding said in his Chairman’s report, “2013 was the year when the chickens came home to roost at Victoria”.

There were about 25 shareholders turned up for the AGM, and it was certainly a more subdued atmosphere than last year.

One question asked by a shareholder, was “Are you confident you can return the UK business to profit?”. Mr Wilding’s answer was a positive “Yes”.  That’s certainly good to hear because he needs to do that to obtain the promised remuneration under the “Contract for difference” which was one of the disputed issues last year. Last year he got paid very little.

A full report is present here.

Roger Lawson