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Yellow Brick Road (ASX: YBR) has appointed an ex-Macquarie board member to its helm, just weeks after a wild ride which included an unsolicited takeover offer of the company and a collapsed $300 million credit facility.
Frank Ganis, former executive director at Macquarie Group, has joined the mortgage broker as CEO and is expected to help spearhead the rollout of YBR's self-funding securitisation programme.
Executive chairman Mark Bouris says Ganis is a natural fit for the job considering his previous experience overseeing Macquarie's banking alliances and relationships plus its development and delivery of new financial products and services.
"I am very excited to have Frank Ganis join us as CEO. Frank identifies with the needs and requirements of the distribution network and this is something that will prove to be a real asset to us," says Bouris.
"He understands very well what the network wants, and he will be rolling up his sleeves to work with the franchisees and broker partners to give them what they need to be successful."
Ganis joins a company which just two months ago was the subject of an unsolicited and off-market takeover bid by corporate raider Mercantile OFM, a subsidiary of Mercantile Investment Company.
The offer was criticised by Bouris as low-balling investors and represented a 3.2 per cent discount to YBR's closing price of $0.093 on 20 August.
"The takeover bid is unsolicited and, in the view of the board of directors of YBR, it materially undervalues the existing and future value of the company and is opportunistic in its nature, timing and pricing," said Bouris at the time.
Just one week after Mercantile OFM made its takeover offer public, YBR claimed that it was in exclusive negotiations with a big four bank for a $300 million credit facility.
The facility with the first unnamed bank fell through, however YBR revealed in September that it was in talks with a second major bank to get the loan back on track.
Yellow Brick Road said the $300 million proposed facility would go towards supporting its long-desired securitisation programme, the one which Ganis has now been brought on to spearhead.
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