Spark forced to field hostile, and at times misogynistic questions at AGM

Friday, 1 November 2024

Spark chairperson Justine Smyth has had to field the arrows during one of the company’s toughest weeks in years.

Spark’s annual meeting took an uncomfortable turn today as disappointment over the company’s lacklustre performance spilled over into misogyny seemingly directed at chairperson Justine Smyth and chief executive Jolie Hodson.

The meeting was held against the backdrop of a 40% fall in the company’s share price over the past year that has knocked more than $3.5 billion off its market value, and a profit downgrade issued on Wednesday.

Smyth and Hodson faced a series of barbed questions from disaffected shareholders over Spark’s performance and queries over the confidence it is now placing in its ability to grow in the competitive data centre market.

One topic was the wisdom of it returning $350 million in windfall profits from the partial sale of its mobile phone towers in 2022 – when it’s shares were trading much higher – by way of a share buy-back.

Smyth, who appeared ill at ease during the annual meeting, said in relation to the share buy-back that hindsight was always wonderful.

Data centres are now where Spark sees much of its growth potential.

“We considered all of those things about how we would return value to shareholders, and that was the decision we made at the time. And I probably don't need to say anything more on that.”

One shareholder asked if they could expect “management and board resignations” if there was no improvement in the company’s performance, to which Smyth replied in the affirmative.

The meeting took an ugly turn when another said there was encouragement more women to become directors and chairpeople, “and we have two here who I think have been a disaster”.

The shareholder appeared to blame Smyth and Hodson for “an expensive court case” in relation to the proposed Vodafone and Sky TV merger and “a brain explosion” taking on Sky in the streaming sports market in 2019.

Vodafone’s proposed takeover of Sky was blocked by the Commerce Commission, while Spark’s move into streaming sports – while during Smyth’s tenure as chairperson – was widely viewed as being very much spearheaded by former managing director Simon Moutter.

Spark has often appeared to struggle to settle on an effective strategy to add value to its declining core telco business since 2011 – prior to either of their appointments – when the Government strong-armed Telecom into breaking up into the businesses that became Spark and Chorus.

Smyth said she didn’t think the investments that Spark had “made over a period of time are attributable to us being females”.

Hodson had been running the business very successfully for five years, she said.