AMA Group has named Brian Austin as chairman in a board shake-up and says it will sell its ACM Parts business to become a “pure” collision repairer.

Mr Austin, also deputy chairman of PSC Insurance Group, has been an AMA Group director since December and was previously on the board from December 2015 to February 2020.

In other changes, the board has scrapped the deputy chairman position, the chair fee has been reduced to $100,000 from $225,000 effective last November and $275,000 before that, and the previous $15,000 fee for committee chairs has been scrapped.

Ray Smith-Roberts, who became a director in March and has extensive automotive industry experience, becomes chair of the people committee and Joanne Dawson joins the board and becomes chair of the audit and risk committee.

Ms Dawson’s directorships include Centuria Capital Group, PSC, Vision Super, Bank First and PetSure (Australia). Her previous roles include senior positions at Deloitte and National Australia Bank.

“Our new, leaner board structure with reduced fees will be a significant cost saving for the group, while ensuring we have the appropriate skills on the board,” Mr Austin said. “We will also be enhancing our efforts on improving efficiencies within the business.”

AMA has appointed Pitcher Partners to advise on the ACM Parts sale and will classify it as a discontinued operation and record about $47 million in assets as “held for sale” in the year-end financials. ACM Parts’ unaudited result for the financial year period to May 31 amounted to losses of $3.1 million before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation.

AMA says it will operate as a pure collision repair portfolio business, including associated services, with AMA Collison, Capital Smart, specialist businesses and the Wales heavy vehicle repairs business to each have ownership of all their costs, driving greater discipline. 

AMA bought ACM Parts from Suncorp in 2019 for $20 million. The company at the same time acquired 90% of Suncorp’s Capital Smart in a transaction valuing the business at $420 million.

The company today said it continues to pursue a group debt refinancing, with an update expected on or before the full-year results, while it also raised the bottom end of its earnings guidance.

Normalised earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation are now expected to reach $44-$49 million, compared with previous guidance of $42-$49 million.

The board shake-up follows shareholder pressure from investment firm Thorney Opportunities, which sent a notice to the repairer last month requesting a general meeting to vote on a resolution for the removal of previous chair Caroline Waldron and directors Kyle Loades and Talbot Babineau.

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