@Solvetheriddle it is good to get your personal insight on this, as Jason is new to a listed-company CFO position, and therefore is more of an unknown to investors, generally.

Further to your point about experience, in his 15+ years since investment banking, he appears to have spent the majority of his time in the strategy, planning and corporate development functions, albeit immersed in the energy sector via Alinta and Ampol. Based on my reading of his LinkedIn profile, his time spent in direct finance functional leadership is relatively thin. That said, as long as he has good management skills, I'd rather have a CFO with well-developed strategic skills, than just an experienced finance manager.

I started adding $EOL in March (RL around $12.80 to $13.50) on the pullback, on the thesis that others here have articulated. But with the CEO change, like you, I wanted to see what the first full report under new CEO Ben looks like, and so have only a "starter pack" position of 3%.

It's hard to read much into this, as there could be a whole host of reasons for the existing CFO to leave. After 5 years, an ambitious individual might be looking for a step up from "small CFO" to "medium sized CFO". That of course implies that he doesn't see $EOL as the vehicle for him to grow in situ fast enough according to his ambition. Arguably, that does send a signal of some kind about an insider's view of future prospects for the business. But equally it is not uncommon, after a change of CEO, for other executive positions to start to change out over the next year or so. Another reason might be that perhaps he fancied his chances as the CEO-successor. With that off the table following the appointment of Ben Tranier in October, perhaps he put his hand up early and said "hey guys, I want to be a CEO, and I'd like to chance my hand elsewhere, so can we start a search process for an orderly transition". That would hardly be unprecedented.

Whatever the reason, this looks like a managed succession, given that they have an externally-hired CFO ready to announce on the day of announcing a CFO-departure, and that the incumbent is hanging around until the FY results.

Finally, given that Jason has spent only 11 months at Ampol, you could reasonably ask the question "why was he in such a hurry to leave"? It was a very short stay after his 13 years at Alinta. It's not as if any CFO-change door has recently closed at Ampol. Greg Barnes has been in place since 2021. So it seems likely that he was known either to the Chairman or CEO at $EOL. And so my guess would be that $EOL Chair Andrew Bonnick (Partner in a Head-Hunting firm) knew that Jason was keen for a listed-company CFO position, and invited him to apply.

Anyway,this is all idle speculation on my part for unanswerable questions,... which will only be answered over time as we see results. But it provides another reason that makes me happy to be taking a steady and slow approach to (re-) building a position in $EOL. (I say re-building, as I held $EOL in 2021 and 2022, but - sadly as it turns out - wanted the capital for other opportunities.)

Disc: Held