Sky options given with small stakes in mind

By SIMON HENDERY

Sky Network Television has issued its two independent directors with 25,000 share options each in a bid to "align their interests with those of small shareholders".

Sky shareholders approved the issue to directors Barrie Downey and former All Black coach John Hart at the company's annual meeting in Auckland yesterday.

The exercise price for the free options is the average market price of the company's shares in the past 10 days, and they cannot be exercised for two years. The options must be exercised within 12 months of the directors quitting the Sky board.

Sky chairman Tom Mockridge told about 100 shareholders at the meeting that the board saw the options as a performance incentive which aligned the two independent directors' interests with those of the company's small shareholders.

Mr Downey and Mr Hart are each paid $32,000 a year in directors' fees.

Sky is 66 per cent owned by publisher INL and 12 per cent by Telecom. Apart from Mr Hart, Mr Downey and Sky chief executive John Fellet, all of the company's eight board members are directors of either Telecom, INL or broadcaster Foxtel, which is part-owned by INL's part-owner News Ltd.

Mr Fellet told the annual meeting that Sky was close to starting its interactive television platform, having downloaded the system to more than 175,000 of its 291,000 digital subscribers' decoders.

The platform will provide an interactive weather channel, programme guide and games, and the company plans an e-mail system for next year.