Banker's rise in Telco mystifies critics

By PAUL PANCKHURST

Critics remain perplexed at the Telecom board's motives for bringing aboard former Bank of New Zealand chief executive Lindsay Pyne.

"I'm in the dark, like everybody," said Simon Botherway, one of two fund managers at Thursday's annual meeting who spoke against the appointment.

At the Shareholders Association, chairman Bruce Sheppard said: "We don't know why they want him."

Critics such as Botherway and the association argue that Pyne and Telecom chairman Roderick Deane failed to make a convincing case for why the career banker (Citibank, Broadbank, PostBank, BNZ, Visa International, Bangkok Bank) was a must-have for the telco.

Pyne said Visa, where his role was Asia Pacific president, operated a large telecommunications network.

"My banking roles have given me a good understanding of large-scale technology and telecommunications projects."

The critics wonder if Telecom's motive is yet to emerge for appointing a candidate who was certain to be controversial.

Pyne, attacked at the meeting over a Securities Commission report in 1993 on BNZ financial dealings, won 92 per cent support in the shareholders' vote.

Telecom has one director who is in his 14th year on the board - John King - and another, Deane, whose roles as chief executive and then chairman stretch back nearly 11 years.

One piece of speculation - raised by a shareholder at Thursday's meeting - is that Pyne is being groomed as a successor to Deane.

Deane told the meeting he "didn't have any immediate intention of resigning or retiring" and the topic was "in the realm of speculation".

A decision on chairman was for the board to make at the appropriate time.