Dallas steps down from Zespri

Mervyn Dallas, who has been CFO of Zespri for eight-and-a-half years, is standing down in June.

Meryvn Dallas, the long-serving chief financial officer of Tauranga-based kiwifruit marketing entity Zespri International, has announced his resignation, effective June.

Mr Dallas has been chief financial officer of Zespri for eight-and-a-half years. His term coincided with a period when Zespri faced major problems over customs and invoicing issues in China, Taiwan and Korea, and had to pay a multi-million dollar fine in China, where a key distributor was jailed.

Zespri is responding to a Serious Fraud Office investigation into the invoicing issues. Zespri would not comment on whether or not Mr Dallas' resignation had any connection with the past problems, or the Serious Fraud Office investigation.

The chief financial officer was reported on Tuesday as saying his decision had nothing to do with those factors, but that he felt it was time for him to move on. Recruitment of his replacement has begun.

Zespri chief executive Lain Jager said that Mr Dallas had given 12 years of service to the kiwifruit industry and was deeply respected throughout the industry by all participants.

"Merv has been key to the successes of the industry over that period, which has seen the highest-ever Green returns delivered to growers this year, Gold returns reach more than $100,000 a hectare and Zespri almost doubling its global sales revenue to more than $1.5 billion," said Mr Jager.

"He also played a tremendous role in the industry's recovery from Psa, acting as a lynchpin in maintaining the confidence of investors in the industry to have faith in its ability to overcome the disease."

Mike Chapman, chief executive of New Zealand Kiwifruit Growers Inc, said he did not know why Mr Dallas had resigned, but praised his "really significant contribution" to the industry.

Asked whether he thought Mr Dallas' resignation had any connection to the current Serious Fraud Office inquiry, Mr Chapman said: "No I don't."

He added: "Clearly he's a senior executive and takes some responsibility for what has happened, but I haven't seen anything that connects Merv through to what I think the SFO may be investigating in China."

Mr Chapman said that the chief financial officer had a strong grower focus in dealing with kiwifruit export returns as they were distributed through the industry.

"He's done that job exceptionally well," he said.

"Whenever we've wanted information, or been uncertain about something, he's responded really clearly and quickly. He's served growers well and he's held in enormous respect by many growers. He'll be missed."

Mr Jager said that given what Mr Dallas had achieved during his time at Zespri, his decision to leave and seek new opportunities made absolute sense.

"He will go with a huge amount of support and best wishes from those who have worked closely with him during his time here."