Saved by the (virtual) bell: How Endeavour Group celebrated its ASX listing

Thursday June 24: Team members at Endeavour Group, Australia’s leading retail drinks and hotels group, got creative and created a virtual bell so all 28,000 employees could take part in celebrating the first day of trading on the Australian Securities Exchange, following the postponement of the bell ringing ceremony at the Exchange Centre due to Covid-restrictions in Sydney.

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Endeavour Group’s team members across the country were invited to join a livestream broadcast at 12pm AEST, during which ASX officials welcomed Endeavour Group to take its place amongst the ASX200.

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“It’s my pleasure to welcome you to today’s virtual – unexpectedly – listing ceremony for Endeavour Group Limited to be trading under the ticker code EDV,” said ASX Limited’s Senior Manager Issues Services Giri Tenneti, joining the livestream from her home.

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“The demerger of Endeavour Group has positioned the company as the leading retail drinks and hospitality business in Australia,” she added.

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The team were able to watch the trade screen as it for the first time showed Endeavour Group – under the ticker EDV – trading on the Australian stock market.

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Endeavour Group’s Managing Director and CEO Steve Donohue then held a short speech, during which he thanked and invited all team members to virtually ring a bell that the team had created overnight.

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“At its core Endeavour is a people business with a proud history and home to some of Australia’s best known brands like Dan Murphy’s and BWS, as well as over 330 local hotels across Australia.  Today is a celebration of that connection to team and community, so it feels appropriate that everyone is able to ‘ring the bell’ to celebrate this occasion,” Mr Donohue said.

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“We are committed to creating a more sociable future together, and we can all feel super confident about how bright that future is if we stay true to that purpose that I know we all believe in.”

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The demerger was initially announced in 2019 and was expected to take place in 2020, however it was delayed following the emergence of COVID-19.

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“It’s obviously a very historic day for all of us at Endeavour Group, we are not to be foiled by Covid. If you think about our journey as a team, we were planning to get this demerger done quite a while ago but obviously Covid got in the way the first time around. We weren’t going to let it get in the way the second time around! Mr Donohue said.

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“Thank you to all 28,000 team members – we don’t get to this stage without you, and we certainly don’t get beyond this stage without you,” he added.

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Team members were then encouraged to share photos of themselves on internal social media networks of what they were doing during the historic moment Endeavour Group started trading.

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Hundreds of photos were shared from stores, hotels, warehouses, homes and offices across the country, and some team members even got creative by doing their own ringing with bells that they had at their own disposal – bicycle bells, door bells and even a cap and bells.

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