Compass Hotel board split

Trading of shares in Compass Hotel Group, which owns a number of pubs in Western Australia, has been suspended after three out of four board members suddenly announced their resignations.

Chairman Rick Jones, chief executive and managing director Bryan Northcote and director Pater Kadar all announced their resignations, effective immediately.

The sudden departures leave Roland Hill as the company's only director.

No reason was given for the departures and comment was being sought at time of publishing.

Compass said it has placed the company into voluntary suspension as it seeks guidance from the Australian Securities Exchange, which states a company has to have three directors on its board.

"Compass continues to trade well at operational level due to the well structured and administered Group executive management and the individual venue operating teams," the company said in a statement.

"It is anticipated that the changes at Board level will not impact on the day to day trading performances of the hotels or disrupt the staff."

It added that it was finding a suitable replacement for the chief executive and managing director position.

Last month the company sold the Gosnells Railway Markets for $5.7 million with funds used to retire debt and for working capital.

Compass had said it will continue to look at various options to strengthen its balance sheet which included the divestment of non core assets.

Earlier this year the Sydney-headquarter company relocated its finance team to Perth after its chief financial officer resigned.

The company last traded at four cents.

Compass earlier this year flagged that it will not achieve its 10 per cent growth forecast for fiscal 2009 as "unprecedented economic conditions" knocked its half year net profit firmly into the red.

The company reported an interim net loss of $80.7 million, down from the previous corresponding period's loss of $9 million.

Included in the net loss was a $21.3 million write down on the fair value of its fixed interest rate financial instrument and a 29 per cent or $58.4 million write down on the carrying value of its assets.