WELLINGTON - The nation's biggest dairy manufacturer, New Zealand Dairy Group, wants to dump many of its directors and scrap its system of electing directors according to ward boundaries.
A new structure, with directors elected nationally instead of by wards, will need 75 per cent shareholder support at an extraordinary meeting
next month.
The proposal includes reducing the board from 15 members to 10, with seven elected directors and three appointed.
Earlier plans to rely on voluntary resignations to reduce the number of directors have been dropped. Shareholders are likely to elect the initial seven directors from the 15 now on the board.
The board now has one appointed member, NZ Dairy Foods chairman Brian Allison. A second appointed member, former Electricorp chairman John Fernyhough, stepped down last September after suffering a stroke last year.
Under the proposed system, there would be three appointed directors, possibly including former company chairman John Storey, who was dumped by farmers in his ward last year.
A Dairy Group spokesman said it looked as though those appointments would be by shareholders at the annual meeting in September, on the recommendation of the elected board. However, there could also be a role for a proposed new "shareholder council" comprising 24 elected shareholders and sharemilkers.
The shareholder council would provide feedback to the board and shareholders.
The company first signalled the changes when it failed to agree on a merger with Kiwi Co-operative Dairies, seen as the underpinning of a national mega-merger.
- NZPA
