Job is Taylour-made

By Phil Falle

Sark Shipping’s Sark Venture, followed by the Bon Marin, make for Maseline Harbour. The company’s vessels have been described as ‘over-valued’. (0489445)

THERE has been a major boardroom shake-up at Sark Shipping, following a meeting of shareholders last week.

Two Chief Pleas-appointed directors have retired – William Raymond and Adrian Guille – and have been replaced by Robert Taylour and Julie Mann, the latter having just completed a two-year stint as Sark Constable, while existing director Bruce Wallace has been re-elected.

The vote by Chief Pleas members – who represent the taxpayers who own the company – in favour of electing the two new directors was overwhelming, despite apparent threats from managers Roger Dadd and Martin Clough that they would resign if Mr Taylour was appointed.

Although I could not attend the meeting, I am told by many of those who did that it was clear that members of Deputy Tony Le Lievre’s Shipping Committee knew precisely what they wanted from their fellow politicians and that included Mr Taylour’s election as a director.

Chief Pleas members also refused to approve the company’s 2007 accounts after Paul Burgess challenged what he described as the over-valuation of Sark Shipping’s three vessels – the Bon Marin, the Sark Venture and the Sark Viking.

He and long-time Sark Shipping critic John Donnelly persuaded their fellow members not to approve the accounts until shareholders have an opportunity to question the company’s auditors – who were not represented at last week’s meeting – about both the vessels’ valuation and the company’s debt level. That meeting will take place soon.

The fact that Deputy Burgess and Mr Donnelly gained a large measure of support for their proposal apparently surprised many at the meeting. As one remarked to me, perhaps Chief Pleas members are beginning to take at least as much notice of what is being said as they usually do in relation to who is saying it.

If that is the case, and a new mood of debating issues rather than personalities does prevail in the new assembly which the December election will create, then perhaps the outlook for Sark is not as bleak as some would have us believe.

According to some at last week’s meeting, Mr Taylour followed his election to the board with a series of scathing criticisms about the company, some of which centred on how much money he claimed it was losing.

He gives many the impression of being a robust character whose stance on issues he comments on can sometimes be interpreted as rudeness.

With that perception – right or wrong – in mind I welcome his appointment and hope he and those who work with him are successful in their quest to turn around the fortunes of what, after all, is Sark’s own company as well as its lifeline.

He could start by telling the real shareholders that there will be no more fiascos like the announcement earlier this year of a cargo service from the Normandy port of Dielette – a venture which, despite advance publicity in Guernsey promising a 17 June start, and Sark being told about it as an afterthought, failed to materialise.

He would do well also to call a halt to the company’s squabble with Brecqhou – something upon which heaven knows how much money and resources have been wasted.