Solar

Tempo names ex RCR boss as new CEO as it struggles with solar contract

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Listed contracting company Tempo Australia has named Paul Dalgleish, the former head of the collapsed engineering giant RCR Tomlinson, as its new chief executive.

Tempo has only just returned to the official lists after suspending its shares three months ago when it discovered potential cost blow-outs on its first major solar farm contract, a $15 million gig with the Cohuna solar farm in Victoria.

The company raised eyebrows at the time with its decision to appoint Dalgleish as a special advisor. RCR last year fell into administration, and was then broken up, largely because of cost blow outs and delays at its more than one dozen solar farm contracts.

These included a major blowout at Project Gretel, and a $57 million blowout in the construction cost of the neighbouring Hayman and Daydream solar farms (picture above) in Queensland.and delays and cost over-runs at many of its other projects.

Tempo’s woes emerged just a week after it began work at Cohuna, and because of the size of the contract compared to its overall revenues, forced it to renegotiate the deal with Enel Green Power.

That agreement appears to protect Tempo from any major hit to its capital, although if the cost over-runs do occur, it will eat into its margins.

Tempo said Dalgleish’s expertise lay in “turn-around” situations.

“Dr Dalgleish is recognised as a turnaround specialist with strengths in strategic positioning for growth and has operated across a range of sectors, from Infrastructure to Resources, and diverse geographies,” the company said in a statement.

“Dr Dalgleish has developed businesses delivering a wide variety of services from maintenance, construction and consulting for engineering projects, to facilities management, manufacturing and technology ventures.”

Tempo has also appointed William Howard as its new chief financial officer and company secretary. It said his recent expertise had been in preparing due diligence processes “for interested parties to a potential acquisition.”

Dalgleish will receive a salary of $360,000, plus super, and various performance rights depending if he can lift the share price from its current level of 6c to 9c for a period of at least 15 trading days (it has traded as high as 15c earlier this year), and if he can deliver a 2c a share profit for the company.

In his last year at RCR, Dalgleish received a salary of $1 million a year, plus performance incentives of up to another $1 million. He received a 12-month payout upon his retirement in early August.

 

Giles Parkinson

Giles Parkinson is founder and editor of Renew Economy, and of its sister sites One Step Off The Grid and the EV-focused The Driven. He is the co-host of the weekly Energy Insiders Podcast. Giles has been a journalist for more than 40 years and is a former deputy editor of the Australian Financial Review. You can find him on LinkedIn and on Twitter.

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