Wool Board Disestablishment Co has made its final report, having met its 2003 target for distributions in a decade-long process that left chairman Bruce Munro vowing never again to be involved in such a thankless, poorly paid task.
The directors of DisCo will resign and unrestricted access to the shellwill be transferred to NZAX-listed Wool Equities, the company established to preserve and use about $300 million of tax losses for the benefit of growers. DisCo has made total distributions to growers of $69.5 million, close to the $71.4 million identified in a restructuring plan agreed with the government in September 2003.
A process Munro had assumed would take a couple of years took almost a decade, thanks to two unsuccessful lawsuits, the second of which involved parties associated with the production and marketing of Saxon brand merino wool. That was resolved in April last year with costs awarded to DisCo, which made its final distribution of former NZ Wool Board assets in July 2011.
"It's the most poorly paid job I think I have ever done," Munro said.
Munro moved to DisCo from the Wool Board, where he had been chairman when it was demutualised in the face of shrinking profits from the fibre. Exports of wool amounted to $785 million in the 12 months ended April 30. In the June 2001 year they were valued at $1.1 billion.
Munro said it had proven incredibly difficult to get any co-ordination in the wool industry. "They are the cause of their own destruction until they can get together and co-operate."
