Is Vik Bansal on the move?

Multiple Australian equities funds are in ongoing talks with Boral CEO Vik Bansal to install him at the helm of their problematic portfolio companies. Many a fund manager is unconcerned by Bansal's lack of people skills. They are enchanted by his objectively stellar turnaround record and find themselves swaying involuntarily as he speaks his fluent PowerPoint. They zone out like cobras whenever Vik starts playing his magic flute. He is the value managers' shaman. 

Bansal's flirtations with big new jobs are well known around the market. Last year, Lendlease shareholders – led by Allan Gray, HMC Capital and John Wylie's Tanarra – lobbied Lendlease's outgoing chairman Michael Ullmer to install Bansal as his successor. The unspoken plan was always for Bansal to bullet CEO Tony Lombardo and with a heavy heart assume the role of executive chairman – and in fact, Bansal got deep into the recruitment process with Lendlease before revealing he wouldn't be available to start for six months (the notice period he owed Boral's owner, SGH). But Lendlease was in crisis; it needed a new chairman immediately. Bansal had been auditioning for a role nobody was advertising, one where Lendlease would abruptly transition to textile manufacturing so as to produce a red carpet for him.[[Ultimately, Lend Lease chose as its chairman former Bunnings CEO John Gillam, who built the hardware retailer into a juggernaut (though on the way out, blew up $1.3 billion of shareholder capital on Homebase, its foray into the UK). He is so far standing by Lombardo and has brought in Barrenjoey as house adviser.]]

In addition to his full-time duties at Boral, Bansal has since April 2021 chaired ASX-listed landfill company LGI Limited and only last month joined the board of ASX20 logistics group Brambles.