Comvita Chair Narrowly Defeats Co-Founder’s Move to Oust Her
Comvita’s Annual Shareholder’s Meeting has seen challenges to the position of chair Bridget Coates and two of her board as decisions made over an eventful 12 months were relitigated, including by numerous former directors of the mānuka honey giant.
Following discussions at the October 28 meeting in Pāpāmoa, and online, shareholders voted to oust directors Robert Major, who had been at the board table seven years, and Gregor Barclay, only a year after being elected.
Coates raised a defence of her position to the meeting and her decision to lead a board which in August 2025 brought forward a takeover offer from Florenz which shareholders rejected three months later. The shareholder votes on both that takeover offer and the resolution to remove her as chair a year later were near-identical – 54.27% in favour of her retainment as chair, and in November 2025 54.29% of non-Florenz shareholders voted in favour of the takeover offer (falling short of the 75% required to advance the sale).
Since then, Comvita has cut debt and recapitalised with Singapore food and beverage company Fraser and Neave taking a 19.99% ownership stake.
The challenge to Coates’ leadership came from a trio of former directors of the company: co-founder Alan Bougen, and long-serving former directors Robert Tait and Neil Craig, the later having chaired the board for almost 15 years, 2005-2020. Bougen spoke to their resolution to remove Coates, riling at her decision not to consult the former directors and with long-standing shareholders “to test assumptions and explore all alternatives” ahead of the Florenz offer.
“Our deepest concern was the value shareholders were being asked to surrender to achieve the sale to Florenz,” Bougen said.
“Why hock off a company based on its highly impaired net tangible assets? What the heck was going on?”
The trio of former directors also asked for Coates to resign at the annual meeting a year prior and Bougen repeated that they have been “caused to lose confidence in Ms Coates judgment and continued leadership” and were concerned what would happen if another takeover bid emerged.
“They can’t allow others, including, dare I say it, investment bankers, to take control of the process,” warned Bougen, who founded Comvita alongside the late Claude Stratford in the 1970s.
The chair’s defence of her position described those troublesome days in 2025 when Comvita’s lenders were closing in, after the company recorded losses of $77.4million in 2024 followed by $104.8m in 2025. In 2026 a return to profit was made, $7.7m.
“The Florenz takeover was in the context of an extremely difficult environment where the banks were applying daily pressure on the company. We were desperately trying to preserve the company as an ongoing entity,” Coates told shareholders.
The Comvita share price sat at 79c at time of the October 28 meeting and its highwater mark since the Florenz takeover was rejected on 14 November 2025 was just 83c.
“The share price has gone nowhere in the intervening period, which underpins that it was a fair offer and that is was very, very important to put it to shareholders to make the decision,” Coates said.
The company’s troubles of recent years were set in motion much earlier Coates told shareholders, saying “there has been many fathers, and mothers, of the decline of Comvita” pointing to “mismanagement, global competitors, and all sorts of other reasons”.
While the challenge to the chair was narrowly defeated, Major and Barclay were more comprehensively ousted, 70% and 66% respectively supporting the resolution to remove them proposed by the second-largest shareholder, PHC Investments Ltd. who holds 11.7% of shares.
The board now comprises six directors, Coates and the comprehensively re-elected Michael Sang; Michael Chye and newly-elected Kosit Suksingha representing Fraser and Neave; plus Peter Nathan and Julia Xu who received shareholder mandates at the meeting having previously been board-appointed in July.
Committed to Change
Amidst all the board upheaval, Coates and chief executive Karl Gradon did their best to paint a picture of a company in recovery, with Coates pointing to reduced debt and inventory providing “a much stronger financial foundation on which to build”.
“We are committed to changing the way this company does business,” Coates said,
“We can see opportunities that are not in the current markets and not necessarily with the current products we have.”
Gradon spoke of “broadening” demand, with the now largest mānuka honey market of North America offering “significant opportunity”. Coates praised Comvita’s relationship with Costco in the USA saying “the opportunity for similar investment, not the same, is very attractive to us,” but that it would take “brand repositioning”.
Competition is “intensifying” Gradon stated, and much of the recent volume growth in mānuka honey sales has been in the lower grades. That, along with greater price transparency and digitalisation, is leading to greater commoditisation the business’s shareholders were told.
The Fraser and Neave investment is starting to provide opportunities for Comvita, Gradon said, primarily with gains in distribution and innovation.
His decision as chief executive not to release earning guidance in 2026 drew the ire of at least one shareholder, but Gradon said they are looking to do so when half year results are announced in February 2027.
No dividend has been paid by Comvita since 2024 and neither Coates or Gradon would be drawn on when they expect the company would be able to do so again.
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