Richard Allert

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Richard (Rick) Allert is a businessman in Australia, who is currently the Chairman of Coles Myer.

Before this he worked with Carroll Winter & Co Chartered Accountants from 1959 to 1960 and then with Peat Marwick Mitchell & Co in 1960. He was a partner with them from 1973 to 1979.

He was a Senior Partner of Allert Heard & Co Chartered Accountants (1979-89) until it was acquired by Arthur Andersen & Co in 1989.

He was Chairman of Southcorp (?-?) and managed to leave this position prior to the company announcing a major decline in profits, and the subsequent loss of almost A$1 billion which resulted in the firing of the CEO.

In 1995, he was appointed as a director of Coles Myer. In 2002 he became chairman of Coles Myer.

He is also Chairman of AXA Asia Pacific Holdings Ltd, Voyages Hotels & Resorts Pty Ltd and a Director of the Australia Business Arts Foundation. He was awarded the Member of the Order of Australia in 1997 and an Honorary Doctorate of the University of South Australia in 2000.

On 6 September 6 2006, the Coles Myer board rejected a proposal by a leveraged buyout consortium (including KKR and Bain Capital) to acquire the company at an indicative price of $14.50 per share. Before the bid was announced in August 2006, Coles Myer shares were trading at A$12.25, with the market clearly unimpressed with CEO John Fletcher's turnaround strategy. The pressure is now on the board and the management team to prove that the market has underestimated their strategy for fixing the company.