Annette Presley has said she is dumbfounded by the moves to oust her. Picture / Dean Purcell
Annette Presley has said she is dumbfounded by the moves to oust her. Picture / Dean Purcell
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Five weeks after being sacked by CallPlus, Annette Presley has still not met around the board table with her estranged husband Malcolm Dick to resolve the dispute about her role in the internet and phone company, well-placed sources say.
Dick and Presley's acrimonious relationship flared up in themedia at the start of October when Dick sent out a press release claiming Presley was stepping down from the business, but Presley denied she was leaving.
Presley and Dick founded CallPlus in 1996 and Slingshot in 2001 and they both hold a 45 per cent stake in the business, with management and chief executive Martin Wylie making up the remaining 10 per cent.
Wylie had said he hoped to get Presley and Dick to the table to sort out their differences in early October.
But a month later, Presley and Dick have not met to discuss Presley's ownership stake and continuing role in the business.
Instead, Presley is communicating through her lawyers with Dick and Wylie, and no agreement about her part in the business has been reached, according to sources in CallPlus.
Yesterday Presley and Dick were unable to be reached for comment.
Dick and the management team had said they believed Presley was not on top of the details of the business, and her other commitments - including appearing on TV show Dragons' Den - were taking up her time.
The Government announced in May it would force Telecom to open its network to wholesale customers, including CallPlus. Since then CallPlus has been working with Telecom to look at the proposed legislation.
It is understood Dick used to translate the complexities of the business for Presley, who was the face of the company on TV ads, and to the media.
But Presley and Dick had not been talking since they split in June.
Presley rose to fame as the face of the company's internet arm, Slingshot, and once claimed she would do Telecom chief executive Theresa Gattung's job for $1.
She had said she was "dumbfounded" by the move against her.
CallPlus is New Zealand's third-largest fixed-line telephone and internet company. The NBR Rich List puts Presley and Dick's combined worth at $70 million.
