Kangaroo magic at Air NZ

By DANIEL RIORDAN

Air New Zealand chief executive Gary Toomey is preparing to hire former Qantas colleagues in an effort to bring some kangaroo magic to the struggling airline.

One of his first moves in the job he started last week is expected to be hiring Adam Moroney, who resigned as Qantas deputy chief financial officer in late November.

Mr Moroney is tipped to replace Air NZ's chief financial officer, John Dell, who resigned on December 20 and will leave the company on February 21. Several other Qantas finance executives who resigned at the same time as Mr Moroney are also expected to join Air NZ.

Another top Qantas executive who resigned was Kevin Turnbull, group general manager operations. Analysts see Mr Turnbull as a leading candidate to fill a key position created in last August's initial restructuring of the joint Air NZ-Ansett management group - that of executive general manager Australasia.

The role oversees the activities of the group's three domestic airlines - Ansett Australia, Ansett's regional airlines in Australia and Air New Zealand's domestic operations - as well as Air NZ's transtasman and southwest Pacific operations.

That will put three ex-Qantas executives in the key positions at the Auckland-based airline.

An investment community source close to the airline said it was pretty obvious Mr Toomey was keen to bring in Mr Moroney as the airline's financial head.

Air NZ spokesman Cameron Hill said only that a replacement was being sought for Mr Dell.

Simon Botherway, head of equities at fund manager Arcus Investment Management, expects several Qantas executives to cross the Tasman from Sydney, although he predicts much of their time will be spent at the Melbourne head office of struggling Air NZ subsidiary Ansett.

"Qantas' track record has been superior to Air NZ and more of a Qantas approach with Toomey at the helm is understandable."

Several other analysts, who asked not to be named, expressed similar sentiments.

What's in it for the former Qantas executives?

The challenge, particularly of turning Ansett around, says Mr Botherway.

He says the new executives will know Ansett well from their time at its biggest competitor.

The changes along the Qantas command chain were triggered by last September's decision to replace retiring chief executive James Strong with Mr Toomey's co-deputy chief executive, Geoff Dixon.

Qantas runs a management structure that has two clear candidates for each position and it was no surprise when several of the executives who missed out on jobs up the chain left the airline - starting with Mr Toomey.

Mr Toomey was also Qantas' chief financial officer and Mr Moroney's boss. But Peter Gregg got the nod for the finance head's job ahead of Mr Moroney.

The first airline finance casualty was Ansett's chief financial officer, David Irvine, one of six top Ansett executives to leave in August after Air New Zealand gained full ownership of the airline.

Mr Dell joined Air NZ in 1994 as group internal auditor, before becoming group financial controller in 1997. In 1999 he became general manager finance and took up the newly created position of chief financial officer in August last year.

Mr Dell's performance has been sound, said Mr Botherway, although he inevitably copped some of the fallout from the company's massive profit downgrade in October and rights issue debacle.

Air NZ slashed its profit forecast for the June 2001 financial year by more than half, prompting the Securities Commission and the Stock Exchange Market Surveillance Panel to investigate the terms of its concurrent $284 million rights issue.