Four independent non-executive directors (NED), on the WiseTech board, including chair Richard Dammery, have resigned and will depart from the company when its half-yearly results are released on Wednesday.
The other NEDS stepping down are Lisa Brock, Michael Malone and Fiona Pak-Poy.
Joining as a new director of the ASX-listed logistics software business is Shearwater Capital founder Michael Gregg “subject to satisfaction of customary director background checks”, the company said. Shearwater Capital’s Charles Gibbon has been a director since 2006.
WiseTech (ASX:WTC) shares had been in a trading halt since Thursday, with the company telling the market on Monday morning that their resignations “followed intractable differences in the board and differing views around the ongoing role of the founder and founding CEO, Richard White”.
They resumed trade today and the market’s verdict was brutal, with a fall of more than 21% to $95.30 in the first hour of trade.
The turmoil over governance following ongoing revelations about the personal life and alleged inappropriate behaviour by WiseTech’s billionaire founder.
Fresh allegations of inappropriate conduct against Richard White, the former CEO, emerged a fortnight ago, with a supplier and employee both lodging complaints.
At the time the WiseTech board acknowledged the complaints saying they “are being considered in the ongoing Board review”.
“WiseTech has received two confidential complaints, from an employee and a supplier to the company, making allegations in relation to the [White],” the company said in its market statement.
The billionaire is also facing Federal Court proceedings after a former employee who alleges breaches of the general protections of the Fair Work Act.
White, and his wife, Zena Nasser, and his private investment firm, RealWise Management, are respondents in the case.
The woman alleges that in return for sex, she received financial support and visa support.
White says their relationship was consensual, denies the allegations, and denies the woman worked for him or RealWise.
Last October, nearly 30 years after founding the $41 billion company, White resigned as WiseTech CEO and stepped down from the Tech Council of Australia board, amid allegations of inappropriate behaviour towards women following a legal battle with a former lover.
He was cleared of wrongdoing last year following an external legal review, which found “no evidence” of policy breaches, but acknowledged White “has a direct approach and that from time to time is involved in robust and challenging discussions”, which was described as a “process of ‘creative abrasion’,” that creates “significant value for the organisation”.
The review examined five key allegations against the billionaire, including a failure disclose to the board several “close personal relationships” at work, misuse of company funds and claims of bullying, harassment and intimidation by former director Christine Holman.
When White left as CEO last year, the logistics software business said he’d return in new full-time, 10-year consulting role, on the same $1 million salary he was paid as chief executive.
When the board acknowledged the new allegations, it also conceded, following media reports, that it has yet to finalise an agreement for the founder’s new role, which “was created at the request of Richard White”.
The last six months have seen multiple allegations involving personal relationships made against the WiseTech founder, who owns around 37% of WiseTech’s stock, giving him a person fortune in excess of $16 billion (prior to this morning’s fall).
They a woman in her 30s who claimed she had an “advice for sex” relationship with the billionaire in 2024, but it ended when his now-wife intervened.
Others alleged that the WiseTech founder had conversations with several female entrepreneurs on social media and elsewhere, and used suggestive or crude language. He was labelled “the LinkedIn lecher” by one of the women.
Earlier this year White acquired WiseTech director Maree Isaacs’ 8.17% stake in RealWise Holdings, which owns more than a third of the WiseTech. He cofounded WiseTech with her in 1994.
The company’s leadership team, and now its board remains in flux as a result of the ongoing claims, which White denies.
Interim CEO Andrew Cartledge, interim CFO Caroline Pham and Richard White will present the company’s half-year results on Wednesday, February 26.
WiseTech said it now expects revenue to be at the bottom end of the guidance range, due to further delays to the rollout of the three announced products, while the EBITDA margin rate is expected to be towards the top of the previously announced range.
Last week in filings to the ASX Vanguard Investments Australia revealed it has been a regular buy of small holdings of WiseTech shares, amounting to nearly 4 million shares, worth around $400 million, over the last three years, to increase its overall holding in the company to more than 6%.
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