If the separation gets the green light, the demerger will take place on November 30.
HIGHER NOTES
Chorus chief executive Mark Ratcliffe will get a base-salary pay hike of $120,000 if shareholders approve Telecom's break-up plans.
Ratcliffe's base salary for the past financial year was $630,000 and his performance-based bonus was $820,000 (paid in FY11/12).
If he heads an independent Chorus, he will get a salary of $750,000 and the chance of a bonus of about $420,000 (the total is still to be set by the company's board).
No details have been released on what the boss of the new Telecom will be paid.
WOMEN ON BOARD
Female directors are in conspicuously short supply in New Zealand, a country that makes much of celebrating the election or appointment of women to top jobs in other fields.
The New Zealand Institute of Directors is now taking a leaf from its Australian counterpart and introducing a mentor programme to try to rectify the imbalance and "promote diversity generally".
Across the Ditch women account for nearly 30 per cent of all new board appointments to ASX200 companies, a 600 per cent increase in just two years, according to figures from the Australian Institute of Company Directors.
Here they comprise just 9.3 per cent on NZX-listed boards. The New Zealand body is starting a 12-month mentoring programme next year for women with a record of executive or board experience in smaller firms that would make them likely candidates for jobs on NZX-listed boards. Mentors will be drawn from chairs and senior directors.
FMA SCRUM
Rugby World Cup organisers weren't the only ones faced with congestion and overcrowding this week. A Financial Markets Authority tele-conference on Wednesday proved so popular that several journalists couldn't get on the line.
Rather than being told there was no room at the inn, reporters were left waiting on the phone without any word on what was being discussed.
During the media update, FMA chief executive Sean Hughes revealed the authority was continuing its investigation into 16 finance companies, but had decided to stop its probe into six others.
ROO TAKES FLIGHT
Apart from official Rugby World Cup sponsor Emirates, airlines have to tiptoe carefully around association with the tournament.
So with no marketing presence in the grounds Qantas is looking for some positive spin-off from the cup out of the grounds by getting firmly behind the Great Crusade tour, a campervan convoy travelling around parts of the country.
The tour's launch in this country enlisted the star power of Australian model Miranda Kerr in Auckland last weekend.
To win a spot on the crusade Aussies uploaded videos of themselves "going the extra mile" to show their support for their rugby team.
The Wallabies look to be in good shape but the airline has this year taken a hit from disruptions caused by earthquakes in Japan and New Zealand, Cyclone Yasi in Australia and a plume of volcanic ash that drifted across the Pacific Ocean from Chile.
Its shares have declined by about 40 per cent this year, compared with a 27 per cent drop for the Bloomberg World Airlines Index, which tracks 30 stocks. Qantas shares closed at A$1.54.5 yesterday, up 5.5c.
LAND GRAB
Corporate heavyweight Sir Ron Brierley may be eyeing the value of property owned by Wellington department store Kirkcaldie & Stains as much as the business itself.
It emerged this week that the former Guinness Peat Group chairman has lifted his stake in the NZX-listed firm to 5.7 per cent. One analyst said the value of property owned by Kirkcaldie & Stains - which has a prime retail site on Lambton Quay and also owns the six-floor Harbour City Centre next door - was similar to its market capitalisation.
"So when you're buying the shares you're getting the [retail] business for free or for very cheap," the analyst said. "One could speculate that that's why he saw there was value there."
Kirkcaldie & Stains' market capitalisation sits just above $29 million.
Its shares closed steady at $2.85 last night.
