Corporate Travel Management boss Jamie Pherous will continue to be paid for the next six months despite stepping down from the CEO role to be replaced by chief commercial officer Ana Pedersen.
The CEO has been under increasing pressure after the travel services company failed to correct a series of accounting errors that have seen its stock unable to trade for the past five months.
Corporate Travel chairman Ewen Crouch said the board had decided it was “time to accelerate the transition to a refreshed corporate structure that consistently meets the expectations of its stakeholders”, according to an Australian Financial Review report.
“Clearly we have let shareholders down over recent months. I understand that, and I’ve heard firsthand their deep frustration,” Crouch said. “We learn from these events, and it’s important we create a strong and sustainable structure that can help us restore trust in the business.”
Corporate Travel Management has been unable to finalise its accounts after detecting what it initially suggested was a minor discrepancy that would “have no impact on FY26 operations”.
Corporate Travel Management says it’s business as usual despite voluntarily suspended trading
Months later it said it would need to refund customers, including the British government, more than £80 million (AU$160 million). The Australian and Victorian governments also use Corporate Travel’s services and both have requested a full audit of their accounts and payments to the company.
In December, Corporate Travel said it would provide a further update in February finalising of its accounts but has not given an update since then,
“When we made our announcement at the end of December … we indicated to the market that we would make an announcement at the end of February, and we’re on track to do that,” Crouch said.
Pherous, who founded Corporate Travel in 1994, is the company’s second-biggest shareholder behind Bennelong Funds Management, with more than an 11 per cent stake, according to the AFR report.
Pedersen said her priority was to remediate customers including the United Kingdom government.
“My priority right now is to focus on remediating the situation with our impacted UK customers and finalise our accounts for [the last financial year] and then absolutely immediately after that, is to progress the next steps to resuming resumption of trading in the ASX,” she said.
It is estimated that Corporate Travel might have to repay more than the AU$160 million, plus remediation costs. It last reported a cash balance of $177.6 million.
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