Handley feels wrath of Sky shareholder
Sky Television board member Derek Handley has been dragged over the coals by a shareholder concerned about the entrepreneur’s chequered history.
Handley, who joined the Sky board in 2013 and moved back to New Zealand about a month ago, was at Sky’s annual meeting in Auckland seeking re-election to the board.
Before shareholders were asked to vote, shareholder Coralie van Camp took the microphone and expressed her objection to Handley being re-elected.
‘‘Mr Handley’s CV is all about the self-promotion of himself. I can’t really see that he’s very valuable on our Sky board.’’
Handley has been embroiled in controversy since he was appointed as the Government’s chief technology officer by former cabinet minister Clare Curran, only to be stripped of the role before starting in the job, after questions arose about the process undertaken by Curran.
Handley was paid $100,000 in compensation plus $7500 in costs after the Government backtrack.
Despite van Camp’s objection, Handley was re-elected to the Sky board.
Speaking to Stuff after the meeting, van Camp said she was ‘‘very concerned’’ at Handley’s reelection. ‘‘He’s started all this stuff but nothing has really gelled financially.’’
Handley said since graduating in 2000 he had started 30 to 40 companies. ‘‘I’ve only ever tried to create businesses both in Auckland and overseas. If you do that you hope for the best and hope they work. Some of them don’t.’’
Handley has a chequered history when it comes to entrepreneurial success.
The Hong-Kong born, Kiwieducated entrepreneur was best known in business circles for cofounding mobile marketing consultancy The Hyperfactory in 2001, and then selling it to a United States buyer in 2010 for more than $10 million.
However, he has had less commercial success as the founder and former chairman of Snakk Media, which is listed on the junior NXT exchange with a market capitalisation of just $813,000.
In 2013, Snakk raised $6.5m from 1200 investors who would now be down about 98 per cent on their investments.
Sky chairman Peter Macourt backed Handley and said his contribution to the pay-television company was ‘‘very thoughtful and very welcome’’.
As a fellow entrepreneur, he understood the challenges that came with it, he said.
‘‘You have to accept failures as well as success as an entrepreneur,’’ Macourt said.
Marcourt would not comment on another shareholder’s question about recent media speculation that US media conglomerate NBC Universal would buy out the company.
‘‘Nothing is in the pipeline; nothing has been agreed.’’
It was the last annual meeting for long-time chief executive John Fellet, who announced his resignation in early 2018. A new chief executive was not appointed. In August Sky posted a $241m loss for the year to June 30 after revaluing its historic goodwill. Its underlying profit after tax of $119m was an increase of 2.6 per cent on the previous year.
Sky lost another 57,000 subscribers in the year to June 30, reducing the number to 768,000 across its satellite and streaming services – Neon and Fanpass. However, Sky was and would continue to be a central player in on demand content in New Zealand, Macourt said.
‘‘Sky is still a very profitable business and earns more than all the other television, radio and newspaper companies in New Zealand added together.’’