New Sealord boss keeps own counsel over future direction

By NZPA

Friday 1st November 2002

The new chief executive of fishing company Sealord says he will be keeping his own counsel for a while.

Doug McKay, a former chief operating officer at Australia largest food company Goodman Fielder, took over the helm today from a retiring Phil Lough.

Nelson-based Sealord is one of the world's top 10 seafood enterprises, jointly owned by Japanese company Nissui and the Treaty of Waitangi Fisheries Commission.

Mr McKay said he was giving himself a couple of months to get to know the company before giving any public indications as to where he would steer Sealord.

"I don't know the industry, I don't know fishing," he told NZPA.

"I bring an international marketing and operations background, and those are the sort of skills I'll immediately be able to bring to the company.

"But in terms of understanding where I take the business, it will take me a little while to understand the industry and the company."

Mr McKay, 46, has also been a chief executive of Carter Holt Harvey's packaging and tissue business and is a former managing director of Lion Breweries in New Zealand.

He steps into his new job after the recent proposal to allocate about $700 million of fisheries resources to Maori.

Under the proposal, Sealord will be under the umbrella of what will become New Zealand's biggest fisheries firm -- Aotearoa Fisheries.

While Mr McKay was keeping quiet on his own plans, he paid tribute to his predecessor, saying the company had been on a "very successful roll" largely thanks to Mr Lough's emphasis on adding value and international marketing.

"He inherited a company that was, I wouldn't say shaky, but it didn't have a clear strategic direction at that point and he's embarked on and successfully executed a strategy which has grown the business in the last eight years."

Mr Lough himself said today that he felt he was leaving the company in good shape.

"It's been a great business to be associated with."

He said he could not comment specifically on how far Sealord had gone towards reaching its aim of 700 new jobs over five years, a goal set when Brierley sold its half-stake in Sealord to Nissui and the Waitangi Fisheries Commission last year.

"Quite a lot" of jobs had been created through Sealord's expansion in aquaculture, and still more sea-related projects had not been made public yet.

Mr Lough said the Government's move last November to impose a two-year moratorium on certain new aquaculture ventures had stymied some development.

Fishing jobs have become a pertinent issue, with the news yesterday that more than 90 workers at Sanford's Nelson factory had been made redundant.

Mr Lough, 55, will now take up several directorships with various rural companies, Port of Nelson and Meridian Energy.

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