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The directors of Holders Tech (LSE:HDT) have been with the firm for a very long time. They have experienced the bitterness of business failure and learned valuable lessons along the way. Going through the cycle of first the excitement of establishing a new business venture (whether it be PCBs in China and India, or LEDs in the UK); followed by years of struggle to gain a satisfactory rate of return in commoditised sectors; followed by withdrawal and admission of money and time lost, has resulted in a much more cautious approach to capital allocation. Now they are focused on making just the UK and German PCB and the UK and German Lighting businesses work more efficiently. But their competitors seem to give them no peace.
Rudi Weinreich, 73, Executive Chairman
Rudi Weinreich founded the company in 1972. He holds 44% of the shares, and therefore has strong incentives to revive the company from its moribund state. First his financial stake could rise in value, or at least the flow of dividends could increase. Second, this is something he created – surely he will want to create a better legacy than this?
Rudi Weinreich, when required, acts in an executive capacity, for example by deputising for the German Managing Director when necessary. He takes a mere £19,000 remuneration.
Victoria Blaisdell, 47, Group Managing Director
Victoria Blaisdell joined the company as a 32-year old in 2004. Prior to that she worked in the IT industry for over 12 years, including as a Senior Consultant for CGI Group Inc. She has been Group MD for at least a decade.
She prefers to take rewards in the form of salary, pension contribution and benefit in kind (£119,000 in 2018) rather than through a shareholding – she holds 34,102 shares, worth less than £16,000.
Paul Geraghty, 59, Finance Director
Paul Geraghty joined the company in 2011 as FD. Prior to that he held “senior financial roles” in engineering companies, including Elektron Components Limited and Protec plc.
He holds no shares, preferring his rewards to be in the form of a regular salary plus pension contribution and benefit in kind – total remuneration in 2018 was £121,000.
David Mahony, 75, NED
David Mahony was appointed in 1988. He is deemed by the Board to be “independent” even though he has served on it since the company floated in 1988. He spent thirty-five years with Hambros Bank in Corporate Finance and as an industrial advisor, during which time he was Chairman or Director of various PLC, Aim and private companies. Remuneration £18,000. He owns 20,000 shares worth £9,000.
Thomas Bray, 38, was asked to join the board of directors in 2017 after working as Holder Components Sales Director for 4 years. He was made “LED Business Development Director” and put on annual remuneration of £97,000. But in Spring of this year he left the company without explanation. He sold his 4% of the company’s equity.
Bray’s role “will be partly filled by Mat Hanson who joined us in February [2019] and is now UK Sales Director for our Lighting and Control Solutions division. We plan to add further technical and sales capacity to LCS divisions in the UK and Germany over the next few months to support growing customer demand and our expanding portfolio of products and services…[Mat] brings significant lighting and controls technical sales experience to the management team. For 6 years Mat was Senior Accounts Manager for Harvard Technology, the specialist wireless lighting controls company.”
Impression of general attitude
It’s not encouraging to discover that three of the four directors choose not to put their money where their mouths are and buy some shares so they can stand beside shareholders in feeling the pain of poor strategy and performance.
On a slightly more positive note, when re
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