Five Luxe board members resign

Five of the seven directors of unprofitable micro cap Luxe Holdings have stepped down, and only two replacements have been found.

The luxury goods group that emerged as Taste exited its ventures in Starbucks and Domino’s Pizza in 2019. Small Talk Daily’s Anthony Clark at the time estimated the value of the investment losses at about R1.4bn.

The group was renamed Luxe in 2020 as it exited its restaurant businesses, including The Fish & Chips Co and Mazi to focus on its jewellery stores.

In the year to end-February 2021, the business consisted of 48 NWJ stores, six Arthur Kaplan stores and one World’s Finest Watches stores.

The company announced on Friday that three independent nonexecutive directors had stepped down. CEO Duncan Crosson and CFO Hannes van Eeden stepped down from the board but remain CEO and CFO of its jewellery division, which is the only unit in the company.

It appears Carmen Le Grange, former Denel CEO, remains on the board, having replaced former Edcon CEO Grant Pattison, who stepped down as a nonexecutive director in October 2020.

Crosson declined to comment about the board change.

The group earlier reported its headline loss per share for the six months to end-August is expected to be 34.8c to 14.4c, a marked improvement in its 385.6c loss in 2019 and the prior period’s loss of 101.7c.

The group announced that Althea Grewar, who has experience in restructuring companies, was appointed an executive director and group CEO.

Suzanne Meyer was also appointed to the Luxe board. Meyer was CFO at embattled Nutritional Holdings, which the JSE delisted in May amid a wave of controversies and delayed financial statements.

Meyer stepped down at Nutritional Holdings three months before it was delisted and while the JSE was investigating it for breaching listing requirements.

Luxe’s share price closed at R1.05 and has barely moved since the beginning of 2021.