Telecom AGM a stable affair

Telecom's annual meeting in Christchurch this morning was a well-behaved affair as far as chairman Roderick Deane was concerned.

Canterbury branch representative of the Shareholders Association, Ritchie Mein, restricted his questions to the $150,000 that Telecom had given to political parties in the election run up.

Dr Deane said the money had been doled out on a propotionate basis with some going to the smaller parties.

The $150,000 was small in relation to the $21 million that the company spent annually on sponsorships and donations, Dr Deane said.

After the meeting, Mr Mein told NZPA the association felt it had achieved its objectives by bringing various matters to the attention of the board before the meeting, including the $2.78 million salary package of chief executive Theresa Gattung.

"Rather than creating a battle ground between shareholders and companies we think we can achieve more by bringing these things to the attention of boards before the public meetings," Mr Mein said.

"Of course if they came back at us aggressively we would need to consider other approaches but I think they listened and the shareholders have won something out of it."

Dr Deane had responded to the concerns by pointing out that Ms Gattung this year received slightly less than the $2.8 million she received last year.

Mr Mein said while he was satisfied with the response, he still believed that executive salaries were out of kilter with the size and ability of New Zealand companies to pay.

"We want to get boards thinking about these issues rather than just accepting the word of some consultant who says they should be paid as much as someone in the United State or Australia.

"They have to get back to the New Zealand situation and in many cases the global comparison are just inappropriate.

"It's not something that will be achieved over night. It may take a few years. We couldn't demand that Theresa's salary be halved or anything like that but there will new executives coming on and it's a matter perhaps of changing the expectations of some of them and hopefully a successor will come on at a lesser amount," Mr Mein said.

The only other potentially contentious matters that were due to come before the meeting were the re-election of Dr Deane, Paul Baines, and Patsy Reddy.

But when the resolutions came before the meeting there was no disagreement or discussion. Each of the directors seeking re-election gave a brief speech outlining their enthusiasm going forward.

Dr Deane has been director Telecom for 13 years and chairman since relinquishing the chief executive job in 1997.

The results are due to be published on the Stock Exchange later today, but shareholders clearly expected the directors to be reappointed.

Telecom shares were down 4c at $5.90 just after midday, reflecting a one per cent slide in the broader market, which staged a sympathy fall following the Australian stock exchange's two per cent plunge yesterday.

- NZPA