NZ Post chair Jane Taylor to resign
Saturday, 20 October 2018
Jane Taylor has told Minister of Finance Grant Robertson she intends to resign as chair of NZ Post.
The state-owned company has suffered a difficult two years in which Kiwibank, which NZ Post holds a majority stake in, had to have a $247 million cash injection, and lost $101m on an IT project to replace its core banking system.
'I am aware that Jane Taylor has decided to resign,' Robertson said in a statement. 'NZ Post are working with Treasury to identify an acting Chair.'
The statement from Robertson followed rumours of disharmony on the NZ Post board, but Taylor would only say: 'I'm not making any comment. Sorry.'
**READ MORE:
* Kiwibank shareholders at war over IT dramas
* Kiwibank rethinks IT project after $90m write-off
* NZ Post to sell 45 per cent of Kiwibank for $495m cash injection
* Kiwibank value plunges, ACC and NZ Super get NZ Post to sweeten deal with $90m cash
* NZ Post reaches agreement to sell large stake in Kiwibank to ACC and Super Fund**
Shane Jones, Associate Minister for State Owned Enterprises, said a report of unhappiness on the NZ Post board had reached him two days ago.
'I only learnt about this on Friday. I haven't had a full briefing from Treasury,' Jones said.
He stressed the importance of NZ Post as a major employer and its need for good leadership.
'New Zealand Post has got huge numbers of employees and a challenging business to run,' Jones said.
Taylor was appointed by former Finance Minister Bill English and former State Owned Enterprises Minister Todd McClay in 2016, taking over as chair when Sir Michael Cullen retired.
It was a time of significant change at Kiwibank, which NZ Post partially sold in a $492m deal with the NZ Super Fund and ACC taking stakes in Kiwi Group Holdings, which owns Kiwibank.
It's not been plain sailing since then with Kiwibank recording large losses on a major upgrade of the bank's core IT systems, known as CoreMod.
In August, those losses prompted the NZ Super Fund and ACC to initiate possible legal action, understood to involve whether warranties provided by NZ Post in the sale of the stakes in Kiwibank were accurate.
In 2017, the three shareholders had to inject $247m into the bank after the Reserve Bank found it was undercapitalised following a Reserve Bank probe into the bank's capital structure.
NZ Post's spokeswoman Anna Hughes said the state-owned organisation would not comment on rumours of disharmony in the boardroom.
It is not known whether Taylor will resign from the Kiwibank board.
Kiwibank said Taylor remained on the Kiwibank board, adding: 'We have absolute confidence that the Board is operating in the best interests of Kiwibank.'
The dispute between NZ Post, ACC and the NZ Super Fund over the IT project losses continues to be the subject of behind-the-scenes discussions, which Catherine Etheredge, spokeswoman for the NZ Super Fund said were 'amicable', and had not reached court.
'We haven't filed any court documents,' Etheredge said.
ACC would not comment on the state of the amicable discussions.
Taylor is a professional director. Her directorships include a seat on the board of Silver Ferns Farms, which in 2017 finalised a deal for a 50:50 partnership with Chinese company Shanghai Maling in 2017, a deal which current State Owned Enterprises Minister Winston Peters opposed.
JANE TAYLOR'S CAREER
Current roles:
* Chair of NZ Post
* Chair of Landcare Research New Zealand
* Chair of Predator Free 2050
* Deputy Chair of Radio New Zealand
* Director of Silver Fern Farms
* Director of Kiwibank
* Director of OTPP New Zealand Forest Investments
Previous roles:
* Director of Forestry Corporation of New Zealand
* Director of Hirepool Group
* Director of Heartland NZ
* Director of GNS Science