Speaker 1: From the Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
Speaker 1: It's Tuesday, February twenty five. Former political staff for Bruce
Speaker 1: Lamon is back in court, this time for allegedly stealing
Speaker 1: a car. A police charge sheet alleges Laman stole a
Speaker 1: Toyota Prado in the Huon Valley hamlet of Mountain River
Speaker 1: in late November. Laman faced the Magistrate's Court of Tasmania
Speaker 1: on Monday, but is yet to enter a plea. Peter
Speaker 1: Dutton says the Coalition could save six billion dollars a
Speaker 1: year by sacking thirty six thousand public service workers. It's
Speaker 1: a move that would more than cover the spending increase
Speaker 1: on Medicare and comes as the Opposition leader challenges Labor
Speaker 1: to reveal how it will pay for the scheme. That
Speaker 1: story is live now at the Australian dot Com dot
Speaker 1: a u a wise Tech was one of Australia's proudest
Speaker 1: innovation success stories, a multi billion dollar logistics business. Now
Speaker 1: it's a shambles, with directors walking out the door and
Speaker 1: an in battled founder asserting his dominance despite a series
Speaker 1: of embarrassing sex scandals. Today, how it all fell apart
Speaker 1: for Wistech and why all companies need to wise up.
Speaker 1: Everywhere you look in the corporate world, there's a charismatic
Speaker 1: tech genius whose personal life is unconventional.
Speaker 2: Billionaire Bill Gates opened up for the first time since
Speaker 2: filing for divorce from his wife of twenty seven years.
Speaker 1: Were you unfaithful in your marriage?
Speaker 3: I certainly made mistakes and I take responsibility. Twenty six
Speaker 3: year old influencer has filed a custody petition with the
Speaker 3: New York Supreme Court asking to be granted sole legal
Speaker 3: custody of her and Elon musk as alleged son who
Speaker 3: goes by rc amid. The tech mod goes absent.
Speaker 2: Jeff Bezos still the world's richest man after the most
Speaker 2: expensive divorce in history, his ex wife Mackenzie walking away
Speaker 2: with Amazon's Dark worth thirty six billion dollars.
Speaker 1: But take any of these men away from the businesses
Speaker 1: they created, and what have you got A whole lot
Speaker 1: of uncertainty. It's called key man risk, the idea that
Speaker 1: someone big at the center of a business can't be
Speaker 1: replaced without risking the whole show. And in Australia, the
Speaker 1: perfect illustration is Richard White, the former guitar technician and
Speaker 1: lighting engineer who grew a billion dollar business out of
Speaker 1: his suburban Sydney garage. White's personal life seems to put
Speaker 1: it kindly complicated. He's married to a woman named Zena Nassa.
Speaker 1: Last year, he settled a messy financial battle with another woman,
Speaker 1: Linda Rogan. A third lady named Jenna Riches has gone
Speaker 1: public about their romantic entanglement. I didn't hear from him.
Speaker 1: I heard from his wife, who told me in a
Speaker 1: text message not to contact her husband ever again. Other
Speaker 1: women have reportedly come forward with claims about inappropriate conduct.
Speaker 1: It's important to note Richard White denies any wrongdoing and
Speaker 1: there are no allegations of criminality. Late in twenty twenty four,
Speaker 1: he stepped back as CEO of the business and accepted
Speaker 1: a new title founding CEO with a million dollar salary.
Speaker 1: But it seems Wise Tech is not coping with the
Speaker 1: new arrangement.
Speaker 4: Richard is flexing his muscles to say, look, I own
Speaker 4: thirty percent of this company. I founded it. I'm not
Speaker 4: going anywhere. I'm the boss.
Speaker 1: Jared Lynch is The Australian's Technology editor. He's been covering
Speaker 1: the latest twist in the Wise Tech drama as well
Speaker 1: as all the other big news in tech. And I
Speaker 1: caught him while he was on a brief stopover at
Speaker 1: Auckland Airport.
Speaker 4: Well, sorry, I just wait till that ends. So Richard
Speaker 4: White owns thirty seven percent of Wise Tech. It was
Speaker 4: his baby. He founded it thirty years ago. He built
Speaker 4: it up from nothing to a forty billion dollar company.
Speaker 4: I mean, how many offers can do that in this life?
Speaker 4: What he's achieved is phenomenal. And as he said when
Speaker 4: our colleaguely And Mendez interviewed him as he was stepping
Speaker 4: down from the role of CEO, I'm not going anywhere, Mendez.
Speaker 4: I'm a journalist with the Australian.
Speaker 3: Why have you resigned today, mister? Why have you resigned.
Speaker 4: Today that I'm not talking? Are you concerned about more
Speaker 4: women are going to come out?
Speaker 2: Mister Waye?
Speaker 4: And what we've seen today is just that half the
Speaker 4: board have walked out the door because they couldn't erect
Speaker 4: agreement over his treatment. And he's shown investors and everyone
Speaker 4: else that I'm the boss.
Speaker 5: Well the chairman and three board members of the software
Speaker 5: company Wisetech. We'll step down this week due to disagreements
Speaker 5: over the ongoing role of the founder, Richard White.
Speaker 4: In Richard White's own words that we saw during the
Speaker 4: court case against his former lover Linda Rogan, is that
Speaker 4: if anyone comes after me in terms of litigation, I
Speaker 4: will always win because I've got more resources than you.
Speaker 4: I mean, it was almost like in the film Matilda
Speaker 4: or the novel Matilda. You know I'm bigger than you.
Speaker 4: I'm I'm always gonna win. It was exactly like that.
Speaker 1: Listen to your little wiseacre.
Speaker 3: I'm smart, you're dumb. I'm big, you're little. I'm right,
Speaker 3: you're wrong, and there's nothing you can do about it.
Speaker 1: The directors who have just walked out the door had
Speaker 1: commissioned a full corporate governance review. Into White's time as CEO, it.
Speaker 4: Started to win the company. I mean, they lost about
Speaker 4: six billion dollars off their market cap. I mean investors
Speaker 4: were hurting, and so he apologized. Interestingly, he didn't apologize
Speaker 4: for his behavior. He apologized for the distraction that the
Speaker 4: subsequent media attention brought. So whether he was really sorry
Speaker 4: or not remains to be seen. So it was a
Speaker 4: funny sort of apology. But regardless, he had a moment
Speaker 4: where he thought, I need to do something, I need
Speaker 4: to have a circuit breaker. Things were going well their
Speaker 4: investor day in December. He shared the stage with Chairman
Speaker 4: Richard danruysaying I promise not to interfere in management. But
Speaker 4: then over the summer holidays something clearly has happened that
Speaker 4: has resulted in half the board walking out the door.
Speaker 1: Yeah, investors are clearly concerned about Richard White's role in
Speaker 1: the company. But is your sense, Jared, that they're concerned
Speaker 1: that what the company would be without him? Or are
Speaker 1: they concerned that his behavior is problematic? Like do investors
Speaker 1: have an ethical problem with him? Or is it that
Speaker 1: they're worried that he might disappear altogether and then the
Speaker 1: company won't be worth their investment.
Speaker 4: It's an absolute tight rope to manage because both scenarios
Speaker 4: are bad for Wise Tech share price. I mean, Richard
Speaker 4: White is Wise Tech. He built the company from nothing.
Speaker 4: I mean back in the eighties he was working on
Speaker 4: at Jupiter's Casino to ensure that the poker machines and
Speaker 4: stage shows wouldn't trip each other out. I mean, that's
Speaker 4: how he got his entree into the industry. And then
Speaker 4: he created this logistics software giant. I mean, he is
Speaker 4: the founder. He is so laser focused. He has built
Speaker 4: into a forty billion dollar empire. If he were to
Speaker 4: disappear overnight with no clear succession plan, there's a risk
Speaker 4: that the company's share price would implode, and investors didn't
Speaker 4: want to see that happen. That's why everyone was so
Speaker 4: happy when they heard, Okay, he's stepping down from the
Speaker 4: roll of CEO, but he's going to stay on as
Speaker 4: a consultant, so you're not going to lose his presence.
Speaker 4: He's knowledge, he's expertise. But then on the other hand,
Speaker 4: you do have these ethical problems that arise, and we
Speaker 4: haven't got to the bottom of yet because Richard White
Speaker 4: and in his ex lover Linda Rogan, they settled so
Speaker 4: that didn't play out in court. Now we've got this
Speaker 4: review that might not see the light of day because
Speaker 4: the former directors who have now left said they were
Speaker 4: going to release it. There are no certains where that's
Speaker 4: going to be a released now, so we never know
Speaker 4: the extent of his behavior. He's alleged wrongdoing, what exactly
Speaker 4: that is. People are going to be in the dark.
Speaker 4: So it's a massive, massive, massive leap of faith that's going.
Speaker 1: On coming up. Could all this have been avoided? And
Speaker 1: if so? How Some of the big investors in Wystech
Speaker 1: are big superannuation funds. Of course they have millions of
Speaker 1: members to whom they have obligations. Does that make them
Speaker 1: risk averse as investors jared in terms of what they're
Speaker 1: prepared to tolerate from the businesses that they invest in.
Speaker 4: I mean, all the super funds have got big investment
Speaker 4: mandates which have got a strong ESG that environments social
Speaker 4: governance component to them. And that's what makes us in
Speaker 4: Australia so different to what's happening in the US, where
Speaker 4: Trump can sort of rip up the playbook on diversity
Speaker 4: and inclusion. But the same thing isn't happening here in
Speaker 4: Australia because the super funds have got so much sway.
Speaker 4: The difference in wis Tech is you've got the founder,
Speaker 4: Richard White, who has got a close well he's the
Speaker 4: biggest shareholder at thirty seven percent, so he holds so
Speaker 4: much sway and he found at the company from nothing
Speaker 4: as well, so people are worried if he leaves, if
Speaker 4: he just rides off into the sunset. What will happen
Speaker 4: to Wistech And that is a big governance problem because
Speaker 4: there has been no succession plan that has been put
Speaker 4: in place. He hasn't been thinking about that. To highlight that,
Speaker 4: Andrew Cartlidge, the current interim CEO, who was their previous
Speaker 4: chief fund actial officer, he had previously given he's notice
Speaker 4: that he planned to retire, but then when Richard stepped
Speaker 4: down as CEO late last year, he said, Okay, I'm
Speaker 4: putting that on hold now, I'm going to step into
Speaker 4: the bridge and steer the ship. That shows you the
Speaker 4: extent of the leadership chaos that's going on at the moment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, last year a CEO search was launched, but it's
Speaker 1: not clear if that's even proceeding now. Would anyone want
Speaker 1: to be the CEO of this company given that you've got,
Speaker 1: on one hand, the founder breathing down your neck, presumably
Speaker 1: with very strong opinions about what should be happening, and
Speaker 1: on the other hand invest is extremely nervous.
Speaker 4: There is no doubt the CEO off Wystech Global would
Speaker 4: be the toughest gigging corporate Australia for that very reason.
Speaker 4: How can you manage the company effectively. When you have
Speaker 4: got the billionaire founder who's the biggest shareholder, who is
Speaker 4: still walking around Alexandra with a million dollar year paycheck
Speaker 4: swinging his waight a hour. How can you manage a
Speaker 4: company effectively? What parameters could you install to ensure proper
Speaker 4: corporate governance? I mean it's an absolute mess.
Speaker 1: Is there any way this could have been avoided? Do
Speaker 1: you think, Jared, apart from Richard White just staying home
Speaker 1: and having a Scotch finger and a cup of tea
Speaker 1: every night.
Speaker 4: Good luck with that. I like that image too, how
Speaker 4: this could have been avoid it? Claire is just comes
Speaker 4: down to succession planning and every company should take a
Speaker 4: lesson from this. It's not good enough to pin your
Speaker 4: hopes on one person, regardless if they're the founder, whether
Speaker 4: they are a long serving CEO, whether they're a gun
Speaker 4: hot candidate or whatever. All corporates need to be thinking
Speaker 4: who's going to be next and then have a smooth
Speaker 4: transition plan that's ready to go in motion, because that
Speaker 4: was the one element that was missing in Wistech. That's
Speaker 4: what's led to the company's undoing.
Speaker 1: Jared Lynch is The Australian's Technology editor, Thanks for joining
Speaker 1: us on the front. We'll be back right here tomorrow.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, join our subscribers at the Australian dot
Speaker 1: com dot au