Mike Pero has quit Origin Pacific board, says report

Mike Pero. Herald file picture

Origin Pacific's quarter owner Mike Pero has quit the airline's board 10 months after making his investment when he said he would take a leading role in developing the struggling company, The Independent reported today.

The business weekly said he had retained his 9.56 million shares but resigned from the board on April 13 so he could spend more time on a fledgling flight simulator business in Christchurch.

Origin managing director Dallas Hay later confirmed Mr Pero's resignation. He said Mr Pero had always intended to resign within a year of his appointment to the board.

Mr Pero no longer had a marketing role.

Origin founder and chairman Robert Inglis said Emmet Hobbs, a Mainfreight director and former chairman of Air Post, would join the board on July 1 to replace Mr Pero.

Mr Inglis said Origin was making steady progress in its recovery after the playing field had been "tilted"' in favour of state-owned operator Air New Zealand.

"We thing the tide is turning," he said.

In October, Mr Pero said he had ambitions for New Zealand's airline industry that went way beyond his role as Origin Pacific Airways' marketing director.

A commercial pilot who used to fly for Mount Cook Airlines, he took a quarter share and a directorship in Origin last June as part of a rescue package for the independent Nelson airline.

Mr Pero, who made millions through his mortgage brokerage, said at the launch of his autobiography in October that aviation was in his blood and the industry was where he saw his future.

He had a "dream" about where he wanted to be but said he "would be embarrassed" at this stage to give details.

"I really want to take it all the way in the airline industry,"

Mr Pero predicted then that the streamlined Origin would start making money this year.

The six-time New Zealand motorcycle champion last year took a majority shareholding in innovative Christchurch flight simulator company, Pacific Simulators.

The business that began in a garage as a weekend hobby for motor mechanic Steve Clarke, farmer, builder and broadcaster Russell Hubber and software specialist Stuart Whelan. With kick-start funding of $84,000 from Technology New Zealand, the company built a ground-based flight simulator that it sells for close to $1 million.

Mr Pero took a 25 per cent stake in the company in June last year and shortly after became its chief executive and chairman.

The Independent reported that Mr Pero said he only intended to be an Origin director for a short time.

He said that although the airline was a high risk-high-return investment, he was happy to retain his stake as it was "money he did not need" from the sale of another business.

Mr Pero sold 90 per cent of his mortgage broking business to Christchurch businessman George Gould for $13.5m in March last year.

Lower Hutt gynaecologist Howard Clentworth also bought 25 per cent of Origin to help rescue the airline.

- NZPA