Dumped as Managing Director of the ABC Michelle Guthrie has now been voted off the board of game developer Mighty Kingdom.
The embarrassing exit comes after Shane Yeend, whose companies still owe $2m for unpaid shares in the gaming business getting his way as he moves to try and take control of the Australian gaming business.
Guthrie was voted out as chair with a vote of 54.11 per cent against her re-election. The remuneration report was also solidly rejected, with a 56.05 per cent vote against.
Mr Yeend, who himself was chief executive of Mighty Kingdom from May until late August this year, said he will now be asking for a board seat for the shares which he has paid for.
Last week Yeend called for an extraordinary general meeting where he is hoping to spill the entire board and install his team of executives.
The only problem is Mighty Kingdom wants to be paid for the $2m in shares which the Company claims that he has not for following a capital raising in August 2022.
Insiders claim that Gamestar committed to subscribing for $4m in new shares but has currently only paid for half of the shares issued.
Yeend has been running a public campaign to oust Guthrie from her role as chair.
She was appointed in 2021 a role she took up after being dumped by the ABC who she eventually sued for unfair dismissal.
According to the Australian, the Takeovers Panel has put out a statement indicating it had accepted an undertaking from Mr Yeend that none of the shares which had not been paid for would be voted at the meeting.
Ms Guthrie told the meeting that regardless of the vote outcome, she intended to step down from her role as chair once a strategic review process, scheduled to be completed before the end of the year, “delivers an outcome acceptable to shareholders’’.
“In any event, I commit to resigning by the end of March 2024, at the latest,’’ she said.
Ms Guthrie said she took “full responsibility for the past unsustainable cash burn of the business.”
“We had an aggressive growth plan and made several investment decisions in an attempt to accelerate revenue.’’
Ms Guthrie said Gamestar did not deliver on either its financial commitments to the company or its promises around industry expertise.
“Once it became apparent that Gamestar did not have the available funds to settle, a position confirmed by Mr Yeend to multiple parties, we had no choice but to terminate the share subscription agreement,’’ Ms Guthrie told the meeting.
Mr Yeend in a statement to the Australian denied that his company lacks the funds to complete the deal, saying it was Mighty Kingdom’s failure to meet conditions under the deal which led to the non-payment.
