Four candidates for seats on Fonterra board of directors

Four candidates, including the three sitting directors and current chairman, will contest three seats in the Fonterra board of directors election.

Henry van der Heyden (current chairman), Mark Townshend and Murray Flett are the sitting directors with former Federated Farmers chairman Malcolm Bailey the fourth candidate.

Each year, three of the nine directors elected by the shareholders of New Zealand's biggest company must retire by rotation.

Returning officer Warwick Lampp said voting was done on the basis of milksolids production. Shareholders receive one ballot paper per farm and have one vote for every 1000kg of milksolids.

In allocating votes, production is rounded down to the nearest 1000kg. There is no cap on votes.

Mr Lampp also confirmed there would be elections in six wards for Fonterra's Shareholders' Council.

Shareholders in these wards would receive two votes (voting papers) per farm for the council.

The six wards are:

Te Awamutu (2): Kevin Ferris, Gillian Fullerton-Smith and Greg Glover.

Rotorua (1): Campbell Shearer and Chris Sutton.

Bay of Plenty (2): Ann Burt, Patricia Pamment, Brian Power, Gerard van Beek.

Central Taranaki (2): Chris Condon, Murray Cross, Bill Gribble, Roger Hignett and Mark Masters.

Manawatu (2): Ian Hopkins, Greg Maughan and Grant Rowan.

Otago/Northern Central Southland (2): Ad Bekkers, Mike Elliot and Russell Falconer.

In five other wards, there were the same number of nominees as vacancies for the council.

The councillors-elect are:

Southern Northland Auckland: Simon Couper and Allan McCracken.

South Waikato: Philip White

Te Aroha: Stephen Silcock and Michael Spaans.

Coastal Taranaki: Barbara Kuriger and John Washer.

Tasman-Marlborough: Rod O'Bernie.

Simon Couper and Philip White are new councillors. The others are sitting councillors who sought re-election when their wards were selected for election by rotation. Under the council by-laws a third of councillors must retire every year by rotation.

The two elections will run concurrently and the single transferable voting system will be used for both. Voting will run from April 14 to May 12 and results will be finalised by May 31.

Voting packs including voting papers and a video of the board candidates will be sent to shareholders on April 14. A series of candidate meetings will also be held to enable Fonterra shareholders to meet and question board candidates face-to-face.

- NZPA