Superdry’s share prices jumped as much as nine per cent yesterday as its co-founder Julian Dunkerton vies to regain control of the company.
Dunkerton, who left the company in March after 15 years at the helm, has called on the company’s shareholders to reinstate him as director of the company after it released it second profit warning in as many months earlier in December.
According to Sky News, Dunkerton is drawing up plans to requisition an extraordinary general meeting (EGM) to ask shareholders to vote on his readmission.
Though the news initially drove the company’s shares down, his plan to oust chairman Peter Bamford and chief executive Euan Sutherland in what he described as the “only option” to save the company made Superdry’s stock the fastest growing on the London Stock Exchange yesterday.
Despite this Superdry’s poor performance over the last year, which Dunkerton attributed to a series of “bad decisions” from its management team, has left its share prices 80 per cent below its peak earlier this year.
“The only option now is to bring me back and go; ‘Right, there has to be a strategic change,’ and now is the moment,” Dunkerton told Sky News earlier this month.
“I am very aware of the ramifications of what is currently happening, and probably the job losses that would come unless the strategy was about to change.
“The sad truth is… if it continues the way it’s going it is not going to get better, it’s going to get worse. This is the moment to turn it around.”
Click here to sign up to Retail Gazette’s free daily email newsletter
