Devine appointment to city holdings company

Friday, 31 March 2017

Mary Devine has been appointed to the company which oversees the Christchurch City Council's trading entities.

The Christchurch City Council has appointed Mary Devine and Greg Campbell as new directors on its holding company Christchurch City Holdings.

Long serving CCHL chairman Bruce Irvine has stepped down and another director, Sarah Smith will depart after nine years in the position later this year.

Devine three years ago received the Insignia of an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to business.

She is a former chief executive of EziBuy, ex-managing director of J Ballantyne & Co, director of Meridian Energy, Briscoe Group and IAG, and more recently served a brief period as chief executive of Carter Group.

* Christchurch City Council companies pay $132m dividend to pay quake bills**

Campbell is the chief executive of Ravensdown and before that was chief executive at Ngai Tahu Holdings. His directorships include Eco Central, and various Ravensdown companies.

CCHL oversees the boards of the council's eight trading enterprises including Orion, Christchurch International Airport, Lyttleton Port, Enable Networks and Red Bus.

The chief executive of CCHL, Paul Munro, said the board had an important governance role overseeing the other boards, arranging funding, and paying the council an annul dividend to offset rates.

Munro said the boards were all independent but the amount of the annual dividend was forecast in the statements of intent of each trading company.

CCHL would receive draft forms of the statements of intent and make suggestions back to those boards before they were published, Munro said.

During 2016 CCHL private sector-appointed directors received $37,000 and the chairman $67,000.

The role of chairman has been taken over by current director Jeremy Smith, a previous managing director of Holcim.

Devine will take up her role this month, and Campbell will start in November.

CCHL also confirmed the appointment of Brett Gamble as chairman of Enable Services.

Mark Bowman, the current chairman will remain as a director. He is also chief executive of Tailorspace in Christchurch, and director of Southbase Construction, Masterguard Fire & Security, and Canterbury Seismic Instruments.