Andrea Fox: DGL founder Simon Henry's attack on Nadia Lim and its handling a disgrace we won't forget

My Food Bag co-founder Nadia Lim. Photo / NZME

OPINION:

"A spiky character not used to operating in the listed world of public scrutiny."

That's a charitable view of DGL Group chief executive Simon Henry in corporate and investment circles disgusted by his reported verbal attack on My Food Bag co-founder and ambassador Nadia Lim.

Next to disdain, the most common sentiment this week was bafflement. Why on earth would this relative corporate unknown, majority owner of an NZX and ASX-listed, Melbourne-based chemicals logistics company, randomly froth at the mouth to a reporter about Lim's minor photo part in the prospectus of My Food Bag (MFB)?

(If you missed it, Henry called Lim "a little bit of Eurasian fluff" for her part in a photo in MFB's prospectus last year. He was being interviewed as a candidate for NBR's Rich List. "I can tell you, and you can quote me. When you've got Nadia Lim, when you've got a little bit of Eurasian fluff in the middle of your prospectus with a blouse unbuttoned showing some cleavage, and that's what it takes to sell your scrip, then you know you're in trouble." DGL, which Henry, a New Zealander, founded, also listed last year. Apparently in a bid to explain why DGL had performed better than MFB, he continued "The uglier the board, the more successful the share". In late trading today, DGL shares were down 5.1 per cent, outpacing the NZX50's 1.1 per cent fall.)

Predictably, the comments ignited a firestorm.

Henry and the DGL board have poured petrol on it by going to ground, in my view a completely unacceptable response for a sharemarket company accountable to investors - and extremely bad form to an outraged public.

Theories swirl: Is DGL getting bad PR advice; is its culture that abysmally undeveloped and unfit for the modern corporate world? It's been suggested the crassness shows why some institutional investors shied away from the listing last year.

But Occam's Razor suggests a simpler explanation: with Henry owning 57 per cent of DGL and being executive director as well as CEO, perhaps he believes he doesn't owe an explanation, never mind an apology, and he's gagged the board.

What does that say about the independence of board chair?

Respected New Zealand company director Mark Cairns believes men have a duty to speak up against the attack on Lim. He thinks Henry's remarks are "outrageous" and the chair's silence is deafening for a public issuer.

How the only woman on the DGL board reacted we can only guess. She's not answering calls or emails.

If Henry and DGL's tactic is to lie low until the spotlight moves on to the next big thing they could be grossly underestimating the depth of dismay around this fiasco.

DGL's share price has been disturbingly slow to react to the fallout, only dipping noticeably on Friday, but that is because the shares are so tightly held with few trades to set the tone.

You can take it to the bank that (women) champions for professional women in governance and leadership won't be letting this lie. To say an uprising is fomenting against Henry's sort of behaviour is no exaggeration. Women with influence are rallying.

While the rawness of public outrage may ease, the investment market is unlikely to forget when DGL, by all accounts a successful, growing company, has to come back to the market for funds.