Endeavour Group has today announced Executive Chairman and acting CEO Ari Mervis has resigned from the position, citing disagreements with the board.
Mervis has stepped down, effective immediately, with the board announcing the process is underway to identify and appoint new non-executive directors along with a comprehensive search for a new independent chair before 1 January 2026.
Lead Independent Director Duncan Makeig will assume the role of interim Chairman while overseeing the recruitment of a permanent Chair.
Makeig has been a non-executive director since June 2021 and has acted as Lead Independent Director since March 2025 and is currently a member of the nominations committee and the audit, risk and compliance management committee.
He addressed investors in a call this morning, reflecting on Mervis’ departure.
“Ari started with the group about 18 months ago post a period of board challenges and he agreed to step into the CEO role in caretaker mode following Steve Donohue’s departure in February and until a permanent CEO was secured,” he said.
Makeig said the board and Ari had numerous discussions surrounding his tenure and although they have not always seen eye to eye, there was nothing the Board characterised as material disagreement in that regard.
“We have accepted his resignation, and we respect that that is his thinking, and we have been transparent about his rationale in our announcement. On behalf of the board, what I would say is that we wouldn’t make the same characterisation.”
Kate Beattie has held the position of Chief Financial Officer since 2023, and has been appointed interim CEO effective immediately, with Group Deputy Chief Financial Officer Tali Ross to act as CFO on an interim basis.
Beattie and Ross will hold the positions until 1 January 2026 when Jane Hrdlicka will take over the role of CEO.
Hrdlicka was announced as the company’s next CEO in April and has since been consulting the Board and senior management on the strategy refresh process.
In terms of the strategy plans Beattie said: “We are undertaking a bottom-up review of the organization combined with a top down understanding of ‘what should you expect from a business like ours’ lens, and at the end of that, we will determine whether we need to change expectations.”
Makeig said the board is confident in Hrdlicka’s ability to maintain operational performance and momentum across the business.
“The Board and management are undertaking a strategy refresh which will include a portfolio-wide examination of the Group’s performance, key business drivers and execution across Retail, Hotels and the Pinnacle business, with the clear aim of maximising long term shareholder value.
He added: “We are confident in Kate’s ability to continue leading the business as interim CEO through to Jayne’s commencement in January.”
As a part of the announcement to the ASX, Endeavour included a trading update and prediction of the company’s 2025 full year results.
Group sales are expected to be $12.06bn with statutory net profit after tax expected to be between $420m and $425m.
The announcement said the Group’s statutory net profit after tax result includes the impact of restructuring and redundancy costs and an impairment relating to the closure of the Group’s Prowine bottling facility in the second half of fiscal 2025.
In the morning’s investor call, Beattie reassured those present that there would be no correlation between the board changes and the results.
“Our intention behind putting out a trading update today was to make it really clear that this announcement about executive transition is not to do with any material surprises in the numbers.”
The full year financial results will be made available on 25 August.