Five Argo board members to step down

Five members of Argo Group’s board will retire at the 2020 annual general meeting of shareholders (AGM), with the AGM also brought forward to “as early as March,” having been originally scheduled for May.

Gary Woods, chairman of the board, is accompanied by Sedgwick Browne, the risk and capital committee chair; Hector De Leon, member of the audit and human resources committees; Mural Josephson, the chair of the audit committee; and John Power, the human resources committee chair, in stepping down.

The board argued this rendered Voce Capital Management’s call for a special general meeting, which would discuss the removal of five members of the board and elect five new directors, unnecessary.

“The Board does not believe it is constructive to call a special general meeting that would be convened a few weeks before the 2020 AGM and entail unnecessary costs and distraction,” the board said. It has filed a definitive consent revocation statement with the SEC, and called for shareholders to sign and return its own consent revocation cards, while disregarding blue consent cards received from Voce.

Argo has engaged a national executive search firm to identify highly-qualified director candidates, it said, and “welcomes input from shareholders in the director search process.”

The board reiterated its intention to present proposals at the 2020 AGM to declassify the board and reduce its maximum size to 11 director seats, from 13, and a revised executive compensation program.