Roget wins Datamotion board spill

Colouful Perth businessman Bob Roget has succeeded in ousting three out of four directors at IT specialist firm Datamotion Asia Pacific, a day before shareholders were due to vote on their removal.

Managing director Ronald Moir, chief financial officer Mark Popham and Martin Eade yesterday resigned as directors, leaving Joshua Wellisch, who has a family connection to Mr Roget.

Mr Roget, acting through his private company Intercorp which is a major shareholder of Datamotion, had only wanted Mr Moir and Mr Popham to resign, citing earlier that he had lost faith in their ability to run the company.

Mr Moir had previously believed the spill motion was due to the board's rejection of an acquisition proposal, introduced by Mr Wellisch.

Late last year, it was proposed that Datamotion acquire Retail Information Systems from the RIS Group in a cash and scrip deal worth $40 million.

Since the proposal was launched, Mr Roget and Mr Moir had hired lawyers to fire off a string of letters and threats of legal action in a bid to get the other side to back down over the proposed acquisition.

In a statement yesterday, Mr Roget's nominees, Michael Robson and Patrick Corr were appointed to the board, as part of a strategy for Datamotion to concentrate on "fresh projects and to seek a new direction".

Mr Wellisch will take over from Mr Eade as company secretary.

Mr Moir will stay onboard until the end of the month to ensure a smooth transition period.

Shares in Datamotion were unchanged at 0.2 cents at 11:11 AEDT.