Chief executive quits apple board suddenly

WELLINGTON - The chief executive of the Apple and Pear Marketing Board, Gary Smith, unexpectedly resigned yesterday after three controversial years of significant restructuring in the industry.

His contract runs though to the end of 2000, and Mr Smith will stay with the board as a consultant for the next three months.

In a joint statement with Apple and Pear Board chairman John McCliskie, Mr Smith said last night he had presented directors with a major restructuring plan for its marketing company, Enza - both on and offshore - which provided for a "scaled-down" executive team over time.

This plan also addressed the opportunities presented by the Government's legislative changes last week.

These will re-structure the board as a company owned and controlled by growers - if the orchardists approve the plan with a 75 per cent majority.

But the de facto deregulation is also seen as eroding the board's control over consents for parallel exports which will compete against Enza fruit in key markets.

Mr McCliskie said the board had endorsed Mr Smith's plan at its monthly meeting on Tuesday.

"Both Mr Smith and I believe it appropriate that a new chief executive lead the organisation through this crucial transition period and into the post-legislative reform environment," said Mr McCliskie.

"Both he and the board have agreed that Enza requires leadership continuity to properly manage new opportunities for the organisation."

Mr McCliskie said that during Mr Smith's three-year term, Enza had been transformed into a strong commercially focused entity.

"But ongoing challenges before the New Zealand pipfruit industry in the face of an increasingly difficult international trading environment require further reforms and a longer term of commitment than Mr Smith is able to give."

Mr Smith has come under fire after announcing a disastrous downturn in prices for some orchardists, particularly those growing braeburn apples.

This season, though the board had accurately predicted a 40 per cent increase in the volume of its braeburn crop, it pressed on with an attempt to market outsize fruit in that cultivar.

The extra million or so cartons of fruit involved were widely seen as having exacerbated the price effects of a global glut of fruit.

Mr Smith's resignation was announced on the eve of board executives arriving in Hastings to address the annual pipfruit industry conference today.

Industry observers said issues the new chief executive will have to deal with will include how to maintain prices for Enza growers in the face of a loss of New Zealand dominance in fashionable apple varieties such royal gala, gala and braeburn.

Mr McCliskie said: "We are delighted that Mr Smith has agreed to remain as a consultant to the board until the end of the year."

The board would immediately begin the process of finding a replacement for Mr Smith. In the meantime, it had asked him to assume temporarily the role of acting executive chairman.

Mr Smith, an Australian, was general commercial manager of Ansett Australia until March 1996, when he quit. He turned up at the producer board in July of that year.

Previously he had headed Ansett New Zealand in 1989 and later ran the Western Australia operation of Lion Nathan at the Swan Breweries company in Perth. - NZPA