Van Eyk chief executive Mark Thomas has admitted there were issues at the firm’s executive level prior to a spate of board changes and the resignation of high-profile founding director Stephen van Eyk.
Non-executive directors Sarah Brennan and Stephen Roberts resigned from van Eyk before a shareholder meeting in July. Stephen van Eyk resigned on 19 August, citing personal reasons.
He remains a significant shareholder in the company and will continue as a consultant with van Eyk until March 2010.
“With respect to the board changes I was wanting a different group of people moving forward … that was just a preference,” Thomas said.
“Where there was stress there was disagreement around the other independents and in the end we spoke to the shareholders and they decided that they wanted a change.
“So we went to an EGM (extraordinary general meeting) and the shareholders decided that they wanted the two new independents over the old ones.”
Thomas said the specifics of the unrest were difficult to talk about and there were differences in opinion about the best future independent directors for the business.
Thomas said he and van Eyk still sat on a number of committees together and met regularly. “So he and I have got a great working relationship,” he said.
Stephen van Eyk was unavailable for comment.
Thomas said he would be surprised if a lot of van Eyk’s clients switched their dealings to another research house following Stephen van Eyk’s departure.
“We spent a lot of time with our clients before we announced [van Eyk’s departure] to the market and we spoke one-on-one with a lot of large groups and I think they were very understanding,” he said.
“They also recognised we had a strong succession plan in place.”
Thomas said Nigel Douglas, who has been with the firm for nine years, would take over as head of research and has a strong team behind him.
