Bid to oust Wizz Air chairman over diversity concerns

Wizz

Influential shareholder advisers have told investors to oust the chairman of Wizz Air for failing to hire enough women to the company’s board and for poor succession planning.

Proxy adviser ISS said shareholders should vote against the re-election of Bill Franke, 83, at the airline’s annual meeting on July 27.

Wizz will only have two women on its board when director Maria Kyriacou steps down at the annual meeting, meaning female representation will stand at just 20pc. This falls short of the 33pc target for all FTSE 350 companies recommended by the Hampton-Alexander review.

The company’s board was made up of 27pc women before Ms Kyriacou announced she was stepping down.

ISS said: “The nomination committee does not provide any public commitment that it intends to meet the target set by the Hampton-Alexander review by the next AGM. As chair of the nomination committee, it is William Franke’s responsibility to ensure that the board promotes gender diversity in line with market practice.”

Shareholder groups are increasingly holding boards to account for a lack of female representation. This year, similar recommendations were made against chairmen at AJ Bell, Aveva and Evraz.

Glass Lewis, another proxy adviser, also called for Mr Franke to be sacked for failing to outline a clear plan or timeline for his succession, having exceeded the nine year tenure recommended by the corporate governance code.

ISS said it also had “concerns” about Mr Franke’s longevity on the board and the lack of a disclosed succession plan.

A source close to Wizz said citing concerns around succession planning yet calling for a chairman to be immediately ousted is “counterintuitive”.

Mr Franke is managing partner of Indigo, which is Wizz’s biggest shareholder with an 18.4pc stake, so any attempts to remove him from the board will face stiff opposition.

A spokesman said: “Wizz Air takes board diversity extremely seriously and good progress has been made in 2020 with more to come in the current financial year.”