Two directors have resigned from Luxe holdings — the owner of Arthur Kaplan Jewellers and NWJ — as the small-cap company moves closer to a JSE suspension for not releasing its annual results on time.
Director Adrian Maizey, who was on board when Luxe was named Taste Holdings and owned Starbucks, Domino’s Pizza, Maxi’s and The Fish & Chip Co, stepped down on Monday with immediate effect.
Maizey is the CEO of Rand Capital Coffee, the licensee of Starbucks in SA and rescued the business from collapse when Taste Holdings could no longer invest in the coffee franchise.
Maizey is also a non-executive director of investment holding company Conduit Capital. He told Business Day he is resigning from all his non-executive director roles to allow him to focus on personal matters.
Auditor and chartered accountant Mariska McKenzie resigned as chair and an independent non-executive director on Friday. She was appointed in February. McKenzie also conducts audit work for the auditor-general of SA.
Two weeks ago the JSE announced Luxe had missed the cut-off for releasing the February year-end results and was at risk of being suspended from trade if they not filed by the end of July.
In the past seven days the Luxe share price has inexplicably risen more than 58% even as its results are delayed.
The company has been loss-making for some time, and competes with much better-funded American Swiss, Galaxy Sterns and Galaxy Jewellers, which are owned by clothing and homeware retailer TFG.
Other companies that missed the results cut-off and were called out by the JSE, such as African Dawn Capital, have since filed results with an explanation for why they were late. Miner Chrometco has also not filed its results on time and was suspended on Monday.
Previous attempts to contact company CEO Althea Grewar to ask when Luxe financial results would be released have been unsuccessful.
The Luxe board has had multiple leadership changes in the past year. In October three non-executive directors stepped down.
Grewar, who has experience in restructuring companies, was appointed as an executive director and the group CEO. She came from the suspended small cap Nutritional Holdings where she was chair.
In October Suzanne Meyer was also appointed to the Luxe board. Meyer was CFO at embattled Nutritional Holdings, which the JSE delisted in 2021 amid a wave of controversies and delayed financial statements.
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