The spotlight on Healthcare Locums founder Kate Bleasdale has shifted to chairman Alan Walker now she and other shareholders are demanding his head on a plate. But it seems to me Kate still has some answering to do.
I still have serious reservations about how the company bought the Redwood businesses owned by her husband John Cariss last year. Yes, Healthcare Locums did disclose in Stock Exchange filings that it was a "related party transaction". But it seems odd that no disclosure was made in those filings that Bleasdale was, until four weeks earlier, a member of his Cardale investment partnership, through which he owned the company.
Bleasdale has said this is an irrelevance because it was clear she would benefit from her husband's deal anyway, but I'm not so sure. Why take your name off the partnership just before presenting the deal to investors? Sources close to the couple say the timing was a coincidence, and was for tax reasons. Fine, but should that fact not have been disclosed in a Stock Exchange filing?
It has been argued it was better for Healthcare Locums to own her partner's company than operate as its rival. But what real rivalry can there have been when Companies House filings show that, for a short time at least, Bleasdale was chief executive of Redwood's holding company, European Recruitment Networks? Why was this not disclosed at the time of deal? Those close to the couple again say is irrelevant, and she did not have an operational role, but shouldn't investors have been told?
Then there is the issue of the Redwood accounts. Its sale completed last August, a month after being presented to shareholders. Five weeks after that, Redwood's accounts appeared at Companies House with qualifications from the auditors regarding the lack of documentary proof on, among other things, sales at the company.
The Bleasdale camp argue those filings were not important as the assets of Redwood, rather than the company itself, were being bought. They say due diligence on current trading was done satisfactorily, and 99% of shareholders approved the deal. But I can't help but wonder why the transaction could not have waited until the qualified accounts had been filed, just for the sake of clarity. Surely when buying the boss's husband's company, a deal should be utterly transparent?
