Clarke Leaves Allco

Allco Finance Group's (AFG) chief executive officer David Clarke who was employed for the last 18 months to rescue the company from debt has resigned with a fall in share market. Last November AFG was valued at $52 million. On April 2007, when Clarke joined the company, the share price was about $11.50. The appointment of Clarke was considered as a historic, key movement for the company.

After the appointment, he was expected to take on the day-to-day affairs of AFG from its executive director David Coe whose intention is to focus mainly on the company’s strategic development. At that time the executive director was busy with $11 billion bid on Qantas (QAN), national airline of Australia. After taking charge, Clarke had the responsibility of saving the company from its $1 billion debt due to share price collapse. On August 2007, Allco moved to keep the loyalty of about 35 senior executives by granting them 69 million out-of-the-money options

Allco planned to sell its wind farm, property and other assets to settle the creditors so that it can concentrate on aircraft leasing and shipping business. This plan was under construction when many companies were making their announcements on refinancing. The plan was finally dropped by AFG as it was hopeless to sell its assets. After working closely for few months with Ferrier Hodgson, banks corporate restructuring adviser, Clarke agreed to stay as chief executive to help with the winding down of the company when they were appointed as receivers on November 4.

Clarke who was a former executive of Westpac (WBC) was not available to comment on the situation. In the last financial year, Clarke was paid a salary of $814,000 and was granted $1.16 million in shares and options. Before joining Westpac, he was director and chief executive of Lend Lease subsidiary, MLC.