Joan Withers snaps up $50,000 worth of Warehouse Group shares

Joan Withers. Photo / Dean Purcell

Warehouse Group chairwoman Joan Withers has snapped up $50,000 worth of company shares.

Professional director Withers, who has been on the board of the NZX-listed retail company since September 2016, has increased her shareholding in the company from 44,389 shares to 65,919.

On Friday, the day after the Warehouse posted its audited FY20 results, she purchased $49,734.30 worth of shares, the equivalent of an additional 21,530 shares for $2.31 apiece.

Withers told the Herald she had bought the shares as she had "a hell of a lot of confidence in the company", and was reviewing her portfolio.

"We've got a great chief executive, a great leadership team and we're working very hard on our strategy," she said.

Withers has a long association with The Warehouse, having been a director from 1998 to 2005 and a trustee of the Tindall Foundation. She became chair of the board during her second appointment with the company.

The Warehouse Group posted an annual net profit of $44.5 million in the 53 weeks to August 2, down 32 per cent from $65.4m last year. Without the $67.7m it received in wage subsidies, however, it would have posted a $4.3m loss.

Net profit adjusted for unusual items of $36.3m was $80.7m, up 9 per cent on last year. The unusual items included $42.2m in restructuring costs related to its internal shift to agile, including $13.7m in redundancy costs, $4m in asset impairment costs from store closures and consultancy fees of $4m.

Asked if she increased her shareholding in The Warehouse each year, Withers said not typically, and it depended "on the situation at the time".

"It's more about a point in time opportunity where I'm looking at our portfolio as a family. I've just been appointed to the Origin board so there is a requirement for directors to have shareholding there, so a lot of things came into play, but I was very keen to buy the Warehouse shares."

For all company directors, there was a very limited window when they were permitted to buy shares, she said.

She bought her first "relatively small" parcel of Warehouse shares when she was on the company's board the first time.

Withers has recently joined the board of ASX-listed energy company Origin as an independent non-executive director, and in September last year joined the board of Sky TV. She is also a director of ANZ Bank New Zealand.

She was previously chair of Mercury Energy, TVNZ, which she headed between 2009 and 2017, and Auckland International Airport. She was formerly chief executive of Fairfax NZ and The Radio Network in the 2000s.