Question raised over Shotover successor

Friday 16th February 2001

JIM BOULT: Analysts say relatively sudden departures are fairly common

By Chris Hutching

Shotover Jet managing director Jim Boult's move to leave the company raised questions yesterday about why he is going before a successor has been found.

After 15 years at the helm of Shotover Jet Mr Boult (50) has resigned from the company and will step down from the board during its most buoyant trading in years.

He is selling a 30% stake, held by his private company Armada Holdings, by private treaty to Ngai Tahu, which already has 50%.

Mr Boult said he would help manage the transition to a new manager over the next two or three months - but the search by an employment agency is just under way.

Stock analyst and fund manager Carmel Fisher said relatively sudden departures were fairly common and there were several listed companies where caretaker chief executives were in control after executives decided to pursue their own plans.

But in the case of Shotover Jet, part of the answer may lie in the fact that major shareholder Ngai Tahu recently lost its own chief executive, Brian Kennedy, after just three years in the job. His job - which would normally include overseeing Ngai Tahu's major investments like Shotover Jet - is temporarily being carried out by Graham Sinclair, a director of some of Ngai Tahu's subsidiaries.

He is a former chairman at Tourism Holdings where he also performed a caretaker role for a while.

The tourism sector has proved a testing environment for Messrs Sinclair, Boult and Kennedy in recent years.

It was during Mr Kennedy's tenure at Ngai Tahu that the tribe took a 50% stake in Shotover and a smaller stake of about 3% in Tourism Holdings, which has seen its share price halve to about $1.40 in recent months due to forecast downgrades.

These strategic holdings have yet to fulfill their promise for Ngai Tahu but they may provide future synergies with other tourism activities the tribe is involved in around Queenstown.

This week Shotover Jet posted an 82% increase in profit to $580,000 for the six months ending December 31, 2000. The share price rose about 5c this week to 85c. Another recent change at Shotover Jet is the sale of its half-share in Christchurch Tramway to its operator, Martin Mongan, because of its limited growth potential.

Comments from our readers

No comments yet