Presley to keep her CallPlus stake despite rift with Dick

Annette Presley. Picture / Hawke's Bay Today

Flamboyant businesswoman Annette Presley will keep her stake in CallPlus despite moves by her estranged husband Malcolm Dick and the management team to lower her profile in the telephone and internet business, the company said yesterday.

Dick and Presley's marital split spilled over to the boardroom last week when Dick sent out a press release claiming Presley would step down from the executive, but Presley denied she was going.

CallPlus chief executive Martin Wylie said yesterday that Presley, who founded the company with Dick, would keep her 45 per cent holding of the business. Dick owns a 45 per cent stake, with management and Wylie making up the remaining 10 per cent.

Dick and the management team said they believed that Presley was not on top of the details of the business.

She had not spoken with Dick since June and her other commitments - including appearing on TV show Dragons' Den - were taking up most of her time, said Wylie.

"Annette isn't as close to the business on a daily basis [as Dick]. We want to broaden out and get the management team to focus on these issues because there is such breadth across CallPlus, the wholesale wireless business, coupled with the regulatory activities."

Wylie said the board - which is chaired by Presley - would potentially look at more investment to raise the capital of the company as it was planning some "ambitious projects".

He said he hoped to get Dick and Presley around the table at the start of next week to resolve the dispute over Presley's role in the business.

"Everyone has to calm down and bury the hatchet and work through the issues," he said.

The Government announced in May it would force Telecom to open its network to its wholesale customers, including CallPlus. Since then CallPlus has been involved in working groups with Telecom looking at the proposed legislation.

Wylie also argued that CallPlus was evolving rapidly with the establishment of BlueReach, a network company which used WiMAX radio frequency for broadband and voice.

Wylie said he believed that Presley - who is the well-known face of the company's residential brand Slingshot - had not been keeping abreast of these developments for some time.

BlueReach is planning a $3 million launch in Whangarei later in the year, with the aim of opening in other centres north of Auckland next year.

There was a groundswell of people in these areas who felt they had been neglected by Telecom, and Telstra Clear did not have coverage, he said.

"Broadband hasn't really been pushed in those areas, and many people do not even get broadband."

BlueReach will supply wholesale services to Slingshot, CallPlus and others. "If we are lucky we will get other retailers to sell in competition to Slingshot. We believe that getting as many retailers selling that service, you have got the most traffic on the network, means you are most competitive at a wholesale level."

Wylie has said it had the financial backing to build a $200-300 million nationwide WiMAX network, bypassing Telecom's infrastructure.

Presley could not be reached for comment yesterday, but has said she is not abandoning the business.