Nadia Lim Simon Henry

The Financial Services Council (FSC) has responded today to comments made by Simon Henry, the CEO of NZX- and ASX-listed company DGL, with regards to ...

"His comments and the sentiment behind them were highly inappropriate. "We at the FSC would like to invite Simon Henry and the Board of DGL to support our It Starts With Action campaign," she said. "As a country we should be celebrating our diversity and our entrepreneurs for the risks that they take and the businesses that they build."

The businessman had gone to ground after calling celebrity chef and entrepreneur Nadia Lim "a little bit of Eurasian fluff".

I mean, you know, when you got a TV celebrity showing off her sensuality to hock script, then you know you’re in trouble.” You know you’re in trouble. They were in reference to My Food Bag’s share dive after its public offering. Henry also apologised to his staff via email for his “disparaging remarks” about Lim, saying the language he used to describe her was “unacceptable”. “I can tell you, and you can quote me, when you’ve got Nadia Lim, when you’ve got a little bit of Eurasian fluff in the middle of your prospectus with a blouse unbuttoned showing some cleavage, and that’s what it takes to sell your scrip, then you know you’re in trouble,” Henry said. But the rich-lister walked back into the club, saying “no”, “leave” and “private club” before calling out to the coach, “Juan, let’s go have a coffee”.

The company formerly known as 'Dangerous Goods Logistics' has been all over the news since its CEO's offensive comments about Nadia Lim went public.

Henry prides himself on keeping his life “extremely simple”, saying: “I don’t have any complexities, I’m just free to work and think and have fun.” Over the next two years, it started providing warehousing and distribution for “marquee” customers Ixom and Shell. Eleven years later, it acquired an Aussie-listed company that specialised in recycling and treatment services. Further investment in transport and treatment capabilities marked the period up to 2017, and by 2018, it had acquired the Dangerous Goods Logistics business in Australia, changing its brand and name to DGL Group. The Spinoff asked several New Zealand businesses that might conceivably use DGL’s services if they were customers, what their views were of Henry’s comments and whether they were reconsidering their relationship. DGL’s founder envisioned a fully integrated, end-to-end business that could manufacture, transport and store, and dispose of or recycle potentially dangerous and reactive chemicals and goods. The email apology – all two sentences’ worth once formalities are removed – is the latest development in a story that’s captured national and international headlines, and engulfed Henry’s chemicals manufacturing company in controversy.

There's a lot to unpack with Simon Henry and his attempt at an apology to Nadia Lim. I don't know if two minutes on the radio will do justice to how much t.

And I don’t doubt that in Henry’s corporate bubble they’d have workshopped this apology knowing full well it’d be made public, so to think a bunch of corporate lackeys sat around finessing this to the two line disgrace that is, makes me wonder what the hell goes on at this company and how out of touch they all really are. Does he even see how bad this looks? Two lines, in a token email, sent by his office manager, six days after the event, and days after he said he’d apologized.