Do Fletcher Building's shareholders deserve the board they've got?

Fletcher director Peter Crowley. Source: Fletcher Building.

Ahead of Fletcher Building's annual shareholders' meeting, I had wondered whether acting chair Barbara Chapman would find a way of absenting herself.

Given the degree of shareholder angst with the company's poor performance and her dilatory attitutude towards appointing her replacement, it was obvious it would have been an extremely uncomfortable meeting to attend in person.

So my reaction to the news that Chapman had covid and therefore couldn't attend was a Tui's: “Yeah, right.”

The good news was that in her pre-recorded address to the AGM, Chapman announced she would step down from the board once her successor has been appointed.

The bad news is that she doesn't expect that to happen until “the first quarter of next calendar year.”