Northland Port Corp. chairman, Mike Daniel, has quit his job, angry and frustrated, after 14 years overseeing the port and property group. The final straw, Daniel says, was a letter from majority shareholder Northland Regional Council putting the kybosh on the company’s proposals to delist from the NZX, sell the assets or split into two businesses to lift returns. The NZX listing costs up to $500,000 a year for a company with a stock-market value of about $90m.

Recommendations ignored. He says the sale or liquidation of its assets could reap $150m, based on October 2008 valuations but by opting for the status quo, the Northland council may be putting the prospects of port rationalisation in stasis. Daniel says Northland Port is currently 19% owned by Ports of Auckland, with the holding likely to have increased to 28% to Northland’s 72% under a delisting, resolving issues of strategic ownership and clearing the way for some form of port rationalisation. Daniel claims the regional council didn’t want to do anything he recommended. “It rather begs the question why you need a board of directors if you’re going to ignore it.”

Incompatible. He says Northland Port’s future revenue will mainly consist of dividends from 50%-owned Northport, North Port Coolstores and Northland Stevedores as well as rent from leased land. This is likely to amount to about $3m a year, which is “clearly inadequate.” Meanwhile Northland Regional Council Chairman, Mark Farnsworth, puts Daniel’s departure down to frustration at the slow pace of the council. Daniel is “a very astute, very live-wire person who goes at things 1000 miles an hour. He found the bureaucratic pace of the council too slow.”

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