KEY POINTS:
Keith Turner, chief executive of state-owned Meridian Energy, said today he will step down from the role on March 31.
He has been chief executive since Meridian was spun out of Electricity Corp in 1999.
Meridian chairman Wayne Boyd said Dr Turner, 56, had made a personal decision that this was the right time for a new chief executive to take the company forward into its next phase of growth.
Dr Turner said it had been an incredibly difficult decision.
"I believe that all companies benefit from fresh thinking, and now is the right time for Meridian."
He said renewable energy is an idea whose time has come and Meridian has an incredible pipeline of commercial opportunities that would deliver new value well into the future.
"We've showed that renewable energy is not just good for the environment, it can be good for business too. While some people think that sustainability is just a fashion, Meridian has been walking the talk for nearly nine years now," Dr Turner said.
He cited the 55 per cent increase in the capacity for Manapouri power station and the 2005 sale of Meridian's Southern Hydro subsidiary in Australia for $652 million profit, as two highlights of his tenure.
He was also head when Meridian spent over $50m in 2001 in a failed attempt to get approval for a $1.2 billion, canal-based power scheme, on the Waitaki river, dubbed Project Aqua.
Mr Boyd noted that in just the last few months Meridian had opened the White Hill wind farm in Southland, started construction on Project West Wind near Wellington, and received resource consent for the 176-turbine wind farm Project Hayes in Otago.
Mr Boyd said that a national and international search for a new chief executive would begin immediately.
Meridian Energy made a $200 million net profit for 2006/2007, down from the $858m last year when it got super profits from the sale of Southern Hydro.
- NZPA
