The Trust Company will hold onto its board chair, Bruce Corlett, for one more year as it seeks to conclude the takeover offer presented by Perpetual, while also suspending activities that were to recruit new non-executive directors to the board.
Trust made the comments as part of its annual general meeting where it reported that it had made $11.7 million in net profit after tax and paid dividends of 30 cents per share on a fully franked basis.
In his speech as board chair, Corlett stated Trust had sought to renew its board and had identified a number of new directors to replace those set to leave the board in 2014. However the initial take-over offer by Equity Trustees had put this on hold.
Corlett said he had planned to stand down at today's meeting, but given the take-over offers on the table and the recent change of chief executive from John Atkin to Shailendra Singh, he would remain as chair for one year, at the invitation of the board.
At the same time, discussions with new potential non-executive directors have been put on hold pending the results of the take-over offers presented by Equity Trustees and Perpetual.
Trust's board has repeatedly recommend its shareholders reject the Equity Trustees offer and vote for the Perpetual offer. It has put in place an agreement with Perpetual for it to wholly acquire the shares of Trust.
