NZME chairman Peter Cullinane says no point being disappointed in loss of shareholder support

Thursday, 11 June 2020

A replacement for NZME's chairman will be discussed at a board meeting next week.

NZME chairman Peter Cullinane has resigned as chairman and a director of the media firm, saying he was aware he did not have the support of a group of Australian fund managers.

Cullinane was up for re-election at the company's annual meeting on Thursday but said he decided to bow out after seeing the votes on his reappointment drift in over the past two or three days.

The issue was the share price was 'not where any of us would want it to be' and he believed the Australian shareholders were 'making a point of their view it,' he said.

'My view was if I did not have shareholder support, it was not a good thing to be chairing a meeting.'

NZME said in an NZX statement that it would discuss a new chair for the company at a board meeting next week and an announcement would be made after that.

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Peter Cullinane is also the founder of Lewis Road Creamery.

NZME announced Cullinane's departure less than 15 minutes before its annual meeting began.

Cullinane put it down to the 'hurley burley of public life.'

'There is not a lot of point in being disappointed,' he said.

'I am highly supportive of the NZME team and private sector media in this country including Stuff.'

NZME disclosed that Cullinane had spent $51,980 buying 200,000 NZME shares last Friday.

His departure proved to be the sole drama of the afternoon for the media firm.

Expectations of a heated debate at the annual meeting over NZME's performance and direction evaporated after no shareholders asked any questions of the company's board.

Shareholders were only able to attend the meeting online, and none took up any of the several invitations to quiz its directors.

Independent director Carol Campbell, who chairs the company's audit and risk committee, stepped in to host the meeting.

NZME was last month thwarted in its bid to attempt to buy rival Stuff for one dollar, after Stuff's Australian owner Nine instead sold Stuff to Stuff's chief executive Sinead Boucher.

But Campbell said NZME was well-placed to take advantage of market consolidation in the media industry.

'NZME plans to continue to explore options to work with Stuff, but in the meantime will compete vigorously with Stuff in the competitive market we operate in, as we have done for many years,' she said.

Chief executive Michael Boggs did not refer to Cullinane's resignation during his address, instead focusing on the company's achievements.

The number of paying subscribers to its NZ Herald paywall had risen 70 per cent over the past four months to 36,000, with another 34,000 getting access at no extra cost as part of their newspaper subscription, he said.

Boggs said the company was putting more focus on its 'premium' business content and had been directing resources towards that.

'We know business stories are a great driver of digital subscriptions, so we have directed some senior editorial attention to the New Zealand Herald business team,' he said.

NZME shareholders voted on three motions brought by disgruntled shareholders at the meeting, included one that called on its board to break up the business to realise the value of its mastheads.

All three dissenting motions were defeated, with about 91 per cent of votes cast against them.

Votes were not tallied on the resolution to reappoint Cullinane as the motion was withdrawn.

Boggs said NZME had seen an improvement in advertising levels in the past two weeks.