A new-look NZME board will be voted in today - all eyes will be on its chemistry and first moves.
Former National Party MP and radio industry entrepreneur Steven Joyce is set to assume the role of NZME chair today, with outspoken shareholder Jim Grenon alongside him as a newly minted director.
What had for many weeks looked likely to be a messy showdown at today’s annual shareholders’ meeting (ASM) is now set to be a measured handover.
Grenon had originally been aiming to overthrow the board and become the chair himself but in a compromise deal with other major shareholders and the current board, he and Joyce will join the top table alongside three existing directors - Guy Horrocks, Sussan Turner and Carol Campbell - with Bowen Pan to join immediately after the ASM.
All eyes will then be on the new-look board’s first strategic moves, including the future direction of property portal OneRoof; whether the company wants to resurrect talks with Stuff to buy its paywalled websites, including The Post and The Press; and the establishment of an NZME editorial board “to assist and advise the editorial team”.
Joyce will - subject to shareholders confirming him and Grenon as new directors, as expected - take the reins as chair from Barbara Chapman, who will retire at the end of the ASM.
Chapman, a former chief executive of ASB, has been subject to much of the wrath of some agitating shareholders over the past several months.
Grenon, who now holds 13% of the company, is today expected to meet, for the first time, the NZME executives who have felt the brunt of his criticisms of the company over the past three months.
He has highlighted concerns over the financial performance and operation of the company.
“It is concern about operational aspects of NZME that is driving this change,” he told the Herald in a statement in March.
“The editorial content is very much a side issue, but the quality of the journalism does impact everything else in the business and is also the board’s ultimate responsibility.
“The new board intends to improve on the journalism, with an emphasis on factual accuracy, less selling of the writer’s opinion and appealing to a wider political spectrum.”
Influential major shareholder Roger Colman will also be at the ASM today, from Australia, as will be minor shareholder and former National Party leader Don Brash, from Tauranga. The meeting starts at 2pm.
Colman said yesterday the new-look board would be the best media board in Australasia, citing the experience of the likes of Joyce, Horrocks, Turner and Pan.
He said it was important to thank Grenon and NZME’s biggest shareholder, Australian fund Spheria Asset Management, without whom the board changes would not have happened as quickly.
Now, he is keen to ensure the directors work in unison. “It is important that these board members’ relationship with Jim, and Jim’s relationship with existing board members, is up to scratch.
“Everybody’s on good behaviour - it’s a question of how this is going to work, right?”
NZME announced in March that Jarden was undertaking a strategic review of its property platform OneRoof.
The media firm, which also owns the NZ Herald, Newstalk ZB, BusinessDesk and a suite of music stations and regional news titles, said it had launched the review to accelerate OneRoof’s growth and realise its ”full potential in delivering value for shareholders”.
Opportunities included the potential separation of OneRoof “to enable raising external capital, either public or private, to surface its value”; “potential pathways to value recognition and monetisation”; consolidation opportunities; and “additional resourcing and extra capacity opportunities”.
“A progress update on this independent review will be provided as part of NZME’s half-year results later in the year.”
NZME has already announced an editorial board will be established. Lawyer, blogger and former ZB Plus editor Philip Crump, who had originally been touted as one of Grenon’s board directors, will be a member of the board.
The scope of the board, including exactly how it will operate, and other members, has yet to be announced.
Meanwhile, Brash, whose group Hobson’s Pledge had an advocacy advertisement turned down by NZME last year, told the Herald on Monday that he was planning to attend today’s meeting.
“Whether I ask questions, I guess depends a bit on how the AGM evolves.
“I mean, clearly I’m pleased with the changes which have been announced. I’ve been subscribing to the Herald for a long, long time, and we were very disappointed - I was very disappointed personally - by the fact that we had some difficulty getting some advocacy ads run in the Herald.
“We thought they were legal and accurate. I’m hopeful that the change will make them more open to running advocacy ads as long as there’s no legal problem.”
He said he was aware NZME had changed its policy, so that advocacy ads could run in future inside the newspaper, rather than on the front page or ‘wrapping’ the newspaper.
“The unwillingness to carry ads on the front page always amuses me. You’re happy to carry ads for an Australian appliance company day after day.”
He said he may well reinforce the point that advocacy ads should be permitted.
“It is important that voices can be heard as long as they are in fact legal.
“We don’t want anything obviously illegal or inappropriate but I don’t think anything Hobson’s Pledge has said or is likely to say will be breaking the law.”
Brash said he was intending to book a full-page advocacy ad in the Weekend Herald next Saturday - it was not connected to Hobson’s Pledge and would be announced later in the week.
Amplifying Brash’s comments, Colman said a newspaper had to be “for everybody”.
“There’s a pendulum - it swings left to right at various elections all the time. Sometimes the conservatives are in power, sometimes the progressives are in power. The paper’s got to cover all bases.”
This was especially important, he said, given that NZME still employed a substantial percentage of journalists, especially in the wake of the closure of Newshub and other industry cutbacks.
He estimated NZME had doubled its percentage of the overall number of New Zealand journalists as a result of the cutbacks at other newsrooms.
In the normal course of events, media wouldn’t take a lot of interest in NZME’s annual shareholder meeting.
However, there is still likely to be a strong focus on what unfolds today, and NZME expects to accommodate at least half a dozen reporters as well as cameras at the ASM.
Meanwhile, Brash believed Joyce would make a good chair.
The pair had worked together when Brash was leader of the National Party, and Joyce was in leadership roles for the party, including as general manager and election campaign director.
“He wasn’t at that point in Parliament, but he was a very effective executive director of the National Party, and we worked together very well,” said Brash.
“I had left Parliament before he came in [as an MP] in 2008. I left in 2007 so we didn’t actually serve in the Parliament together, but my impression is he was a very competent minister.”
Brash has bought 1000 shares in NZME. This allows him to attend the ASM.
“As a shareholder, I hope he runs the company well. I’m a very modest shareholder, I don’t have any particularly strong views about his chairmanship. I’m sure he will do a good job - he’s a very competent guy, and of course, he’s been in the media himself prior to going to politics.
“In a sense, the developments that have taken place in the last few weeks may make it less important for me to make a public statement.
“I’m pleased with what’s happened, and if I say anything at all, it will be in support of what’s happened.“
Editor-at-Large Shayne Currie is one of New Zealand’s most experienced senior journalists and media leaders. He has held executive and senior editorial roles at NZME including Managing Editor, NZ Herald Editor and Herald on Sunday Editor and has a small shareholding in NZME.
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The halfback played more than 220 matches for the Warriors in two stints with the club.