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Disharmony rumours, now NZ Post chairwoman quits

Jane Taylor has told Minister of Finance Grant Robertson she intends to resign as chairwoman of NZ Post.

The state-owned company has suffered a difficult two years in which Kiwibank, of which NZ Post holds a majority stake, had to have a $247 million cash injection, and lost $101m on an IT project to replace its core banking system.

‘‘I am aware that Jane Taylor has decided to resign,’’ Robertson said. ‘‘NZ Post are working with Treasury to identify an acting chair.’’

The confirmation from Robertson followed reports of disharmony on the NZ Post board, but Taylor would only say: ‘‘I’m not making any comment. Sorry.’’

Shane Jones, Associate Minister for State Owned Enterprises, said a report of unhappiness on the NZ Post board had reached him two days ago.

‘‘I only learnt about this on Friday. I haven’t had a full briefing from Treasury,’’ Jones said.

He stressed the importance of NZ Post as a major employer and its need for good leadership.

‘‘New Zealand Post has got huge numbers of employees and a challenging business to run,’’ Jones said.

Taylor was appointed by former finance minister Bill English and former state owned enterprises minister Todd McClay in 2016, taking over when Sir Michael Cullen retired.

It was a time of significant change at Kiwibank, which NZ Post partially sold in a $492m deal with the NZ Super Fund and ACC taking stakes in Kiwi Group Holdings, which owns Kiwibank.

It’s not been plain sailing since with Kiwibank recording large losses on a major upgrade of its core IT systems, known as CoreMod.

In August, those losses prompted the NZ Super Fund and ACC to threaten legal action, understood to involve whether warranties provided by NZ Post in the sale of the stakes in Kiwibank were accurate.

In 2017, the three shareholders had to inject $247m into the bank after the Reserve Bank found it was undercapitalised following a Reserve Bank probe into the bank’s capital structure.

NZ Post spokeswoman Anna Hughes said the state-owned organisation would not comment on the disharmony in the boardroom.

It is not known whether Taylor will resign from the Kiwibank board.

Kiwibank said Taylor remained on the Kiwibank board, adding: ‘‘We have absolute confidence that the board is operating in the best interests of Kiwibank.’’

The dispute between NZ Post, ACC and the NZ Super Fund over the IT project losses continues to be the subject of behind-thescenes discussions, which Catherine Etheredge, spokeswoman for the NZ Super Fund, said were ‘‘amicable’’, and had not reached court.

‘‘We haven’t filed any court documents,’’ Etheredge said.

ACC would not comment on the state of the discussions.

Taylor is a professional director. Her directorships include a seat on the board of Silver Ferns Farms, which in 2017 finalised a deal for a 50:50 partnership with Chinese company Shanghai Maling in 2017, a deal which current State Owned Enterprises Minister Winston Peters opposed.