Australian footwear giant Accent Group won’t capitulate to hostile British suitor’s board cull demands

Australia’s biggest footwear retailer is refusing to capitulate to its hostile suitor’s demands, dismissing its largest shareholders’ baying for board blood as “a lot of noise”.

Accent Group has urged investors to reject a $390 million hostile takeover bid by British retail giant Frasers Group, saying the price is way too low and does not reflect its growth potential, with a years-long restructure underway.

As it posted an annual loss last week, Frasers — which has the massive Sports Direct chain at the centre of its empire — remained scathing of Accent’s performance, calling for management scalps, particularly chair Lawrence Myers.

But there’s only been one board departure since the offer lobbed mid-June, with Michael Hapgood’s resignation as a director attributed to personal reasons.

Asked if Accent would continue to resist calls for a board shake-up, chief executive Daniel Agostinelli said the strategy for dealing with Frasers was chairman-led.

“We’ve certainly not had those conversations, at this stage, with any of that,” Mr Agostinelli told The West Australian.

“I’m selling shoes and a lot of them, and we’ve got some really good stuff going our way.

“So all the other stuff is a lot of noise from my point of view.”

Finance director Matthew Durbin said Accent had good advisers and would “just have to do what we need to do as we move forward”.

Accent is seeking to further cut wages costs after slashing 100 head office support jobs last financial year, while adding 50 customer service roles to its offshore team in Vietnam.

More office roles could go but not in major numbers, Mr Durbin said, signalling more offshoring was on the cards.

“With the cost pressures and the inflationary pressures . . . unfortunately, we need to look at every cost,” he said.

“And the reality is that doing some of these sort of administrative-type tasks offshore is just so much cheaper.”

Accent has shuttered dozens of underperforming stores, including closing youth fashion chain Glue Store completely, and is also exiting premises with expensive leases.

But it is pressing further into the ragtrade, with plans to roll out a new internally-developed women’s streetwear brand ODE after it sold well within Stylerunner stores and from pop-ups.

Mr Agostinelli said the brand was pitched at a slightly higher price point than Accent’s popular Nude Lucy women’s fashion business.

Accent has about 850 stores selling owned and distributed brands including The Athlete’s Foot and Van’s, but its planned roll out of Sports Direct in Australia and New Zealand over coming years - in partnership with Frasers - is moving slower than expected.

Mr Agostinelli said “anything sport” was selling strongly — with the Hoka brand “firing” in particular — and the first weeks of the new financial year overall felt “a bit better in terms of sentiment”.

“Certainly not punching the air, but certainly felt better,” he said.

“There is some momentum and I’m hoping that the cost measures we’ve taken should allow us to achieve what we want to.”

Frasers has a 22.9 per cent interest in Accent and was founded by billionaire Mike Ashley.