Institutional investors are wont to fume at regular intervals about chairmen of public companies who insist on holding on to the chief executive's job as well. Michael Smurfit is the most obvious double-jobber, but there are a few others as well, notably Iona's Chris Horn and Abbey's Charles Gallagher, who fall foul of the IAIM wish that the two jobs should be separated.
Of course, Denis O'Brien of Esat is also a double-jobber but Esat - not being listed in Dublin might feel that IAIM requirements on separation of powers do not apply. Crean's Ray McLoughlin is another, but the Crean boss says he is just waiting to pass on the chairman's hat once the company restructuring is complete.
And then there is Gene Murtagh, chairman and chief executive of Kingspan since the building materials group floated six years ago.
Does the Kingspan boss believe there is any need for him to find a non-executive chairman? The blunt answer, judging by his comments at last week's Kingspan annual general meeting, seems to be no.
It's not an issue to date, said Mr Murtagh, adding that if anybody felt that a bad job was being done, he would have considered splitting the job before now. Well, that's not quite the point, is it?
It's not about how well or otherwise joint chairmen/chief executives do both jobs, it's all about a belief that the jobs should be held by different people, with the non-executive chairman and indeed the non-executive directors there to represent the interests of shareholders, not management.
If the IAIM has not told Kingspan that it is not happy with Mr Murtagh's dual role, and judging by his comments last week nobody seems to have drawn it to his attention, then it is time the Kingspan chairman/chief executive and indeed the rest of the corporate double-jobbers were told in no uncertain terms to split the two jobs.
Now, Kingspan is an excellent company, it is well-managed and has consistently been able to find good acquisitions. But Kingspan still trades on a prospective price/earnings multiple of less than 10, a pitiful rating for a company that has trebled profits in the past three years and is set to show further growth this year. It also has the unfortunate knack of getting bad headlines.
Regular selling of shares by directors, the eh. . . unorthodox share dealing by members of former director Brendan Murtagh's family, and Brendan Murtagh's own exposure to the MMI collapse have all tended to undermine Kingspan's good work on making plasterboard and radiators.
Last week, Gene Murtagh said that his brother's sale of £23 million worth of shares a couple months ago was a matter for himself. In effect he told shareholders at the a.g.m. that it was none of their business. That's technically correct since Brendan Murtagh quit as a Kingspan director when the wife of one of his sons and a close friend of his other son were found engaging in a bit of share dealing they shouldn't have been involved in.
Image has a lot to do with a company's standing in the market, and Kingspan's image has regularly been tarnished by events which have nothing to do with its unexciting but highly profitable business. A first step towards improving that image might be for Gene Murtagh to fall in line with established corporate practice and find himself a non-executive chairman.
