John McLean: NZME, Oh Me Oh My

NZME Limited is a New Zealand media company that’s publicly listed on NZX, New Zealand’s securities exchange.

NZME publishes several newspapers, including The Herald, and runs multiple radio stations, the most prominent being Newstalk ZB. Curiously, NZME also owns OneRoof, a website for people wanting to buy or sell real estate.

NZME has itself recently been in the news. A chap named Jim Grenon has purchased about 9.3% of the shares in NZME and has publicly stated he wants NZME’s current board of directors to be radically reshaped at NZME’s upcoming annual shareholders meeting, scheduled for 15 May 2025. Grenon openly and unashamedly seeks to personally supplant current NZME board chair, Barbara Chapman, as NZME chair.

Chapman has been around the traps in New Zealand’s business and other circles for years, occupying roles as diverse and inclusive as managing director of ASB Bank (2011-2018) and Patron of the New Zealand Rainbow Excellence Awards (2019-23).

Chapman briefly overlapped at ASB with Falencie Flilipo (“Lencie”), who works in ASB’s risk division and was a Rainbow Tick Awards Judge 2021-2023. According to Lencie’s Rainbow Awards profile, she:

[is] championing young trans folk that challenge and take control of their narrative that is often misled and a false reality pushed by those who subscribe to anti-trans rhetoric

has taken a recent interest in intersectionality…Lencie believes intersectionality is hugely important in truly embracing diversity and inclusion in training our minds to consciously be aware of our unconscious bias that is directly attributed to intersectionality

Grenon v. Chapman

But back to the spat between Grenon and Chapman.

In early March 2025, Grenon sent NZME a communication headed Letter to NZME Shareholders. On 21 March, in a release through NZX expressly “Authorised by Barbara Chapman, Chapman”, NZME publicly released Grenon’s letter.

Grenon’s letter states “I do not propose to act as an average, passive, board chair”. Under the proposal set out in Grenon’s letter, four new NZME directors (including Grenon) will be appointed at NZME’s May meeting, and those four directors will choose one of the existing NZME directors (not Chapman) to remain on the NZME board. Grenon’s three other proposed appointees are Simon West, Des Gittings and Philip Crump. Grenon’s proposal will go nowhere unless a majority of NZME shareholders vote in favour of it.

Crump writes a Substack, which nowadays mainly covers overseas matters. He did excellent work to expose the last Labour Government’s pernicious attempt to implement the “Three Waters” legislative reforms, which would’ve handed control of New Zealand’s water to New Zealanders with Māori ancestry. Crump’s degrees include a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature and Māori studies.

Chapman’s NZX release – accompanying Grenon’s letter - asserted “The NZME Board is focused on protecting shareholder value…”. That’s a tenuous assertion given The Herald’s history of spurning advertising revenue for ideological reasons. For example, in August 2024 The Herald rejected advertising, and what would have been lucrative advertising revenue, from Hobson’s Pledge – the lobby group with the temerity to advocate for equal constitutional rights for all New Zealanders, regardless of the someone’s racial ancestry.

Grenon’s main gripe is with NZME’s declining financial performance, and with poor disclosure of that decline. He points out that almost half of NZME’s approximately 1,200 employees earn more than $100,000 a year, with 93 earning more than $200,000.

Rabid-io New Zealand coverage

Radio NZ’s coverage of Grenon’s gambit has been typically slanted. In a 12 March piece headed Billionaire aiming for NZME’s board rejects journalists’ concerns, RNZ quotes at length from E Tu union “spokesperson” Michael Wood - conveniently failing to disclose that Wood was of course a Minister in the last Labour Government that spent almost $400 million trying to combine RNZ and TVNZ into a giant Government propaganda machine.

Wood’s reported, stock-standard piffle included:

We see a pattern that has been incredibly unhealthy in other countries of billionaires moving into media ownership roles to be able to promote their own particular view of the world

To which Grenon responded that he’s looking for improved journalism with “an emphasis on factual accuracy, less selling of the writer’s opinion and appealing to a wider political spectrum”, adding “Wealthy people are not all alike and come from all spectrums, including moderate. I do not have a history of being either a public or political person but I am concerned about the quality of the media in NZ”.

Takeover!?

On 18 March 2025, under the gleeful heading Billionaire Jim Grenon's NZME shake-up draws Takeovers Panel's attention, RNZ reported that New Zealand’s Takeovers Panel is looking at Grenon’s NZME activities…as if he’s on the brink of being popped for some sort of corporate mischief.

Which is typically odd, slanted news coverage from RNZ. As indicated, Grenon (through his company, JTG 4 Limited) currently owns 9.3% of NZME. Under New Zealand’s Takeovers Code, the fundamental rule is that someone in Grenon’s position cannot become the holder of more than 20% of NZME without offering to buy at least half of all shares in NZME.

Given Grenon’s proposal to reconstitute NZME’s board does not involve him buying any more shares in NZME, the inquiring New Zealand citizen may wonder why the Takeovers Panel is investigating Grenon. The answer possibly lies in the facts that, for the purposes of working out whether the 20% threshold is triggered (such as to require Grenon to make a partial or full offer):

• Grenon’s existing stake in NZME is aggregated with the stake of any “associate” of Grenon

• Grenon’s proposal for NZME Board reform is backed by Spheria, an Australian-based investment firm which holds 19% of NZME shares

For present purposes, Grenon and Spheria would be “associates” if:

• They are acting jointly or in concert; or

• Spheria acts, or is accustomed to act, in accordance with Grenon’s wishes; or

• Grenon and Spheria have a business relationship, personal relationship, or an ownership relationship such that they should, under the circumstances, be regarded as associates

The allegation appears to be that Spheria is an “associate” of Grenon, such that Grenon is deemed to hold 28.3% (9.3% + 19%) of NZME’s shares…and should therefore already have made a partial or full offer.

From the publicly available information, it seems to this Substacker that Spheria is certainly not an “associate” of Grenon. In particular, Spheria’s indication of support for Grenon’s proposal at the upcoming NZME annual meeting falls well short of meaning that Spheria and Grenon are acting jointly or in concert.

Grenon’s initiative is Grenon’s alone. My pick…the Takeovers Panel will find nothing untoward on Grenon. The Takeovers Panel Chief Executive is Andrew Hudson, an eminently sound guy with whom, in a former life, I drank lots of Scotch whisky. In a very general (layman’s) sense, Grenon is looking to take over the NZME Board, but by his own accurate admission he would, as chair, still possess just one vote on the NZME Board. That’s no “Takeover”.

Chapman’s rearguard action

So who might’ve grizzled to the Takeovers Panel? Let’s have a random stab in the dark and speculate it could have been Chapman herself, or one of her instructed minions.

The Herald has reported “NZME board chair Barbara Chapman told NZME that the company was open to new board members, but rejected criticism of its performance.” If that report is accurate, then Chapman has displayed an alarming misunderstanding of corporate governance. Because a company doesn’t appoints its board of directors, it’s the company shareholders who do the appointing.

Chapman’s apparent confusion about how a company’s directors are appointed is characteristic of Woke elitists like herself. At heart, the Woke Elite don’t believe in either political or corporate democracy. They believe in top-down elite control of political and economic activity, and of cultural norms and narratives.

The only attempted takeover we’re looking at here is an attempt by Chapman to take over the NZME Board, and thereby NZME itself. But if Chapman is not populist, neither is she popular.

By my reckoning, Chapman’s days as NZME Chair are distinctly numbered…52 days, by my calculation. If Babs goes, she’ll lose her cozy $180,000 p.a. NZME Board remuneration.

In 2024, NZME CEO Michael Boggs’ received $1.9m. (down from $2.8m in 2023). And in the remuneration bands disclosed in NZME’s 2024 annual report, someone got $920,001 - $930,000. Could that be Mike “Maserati” Hosking? How might the two Mikes fare under new NZME governance?

John McLean is a citizen typist and enthusiastic amateur who blogs at John's Substack where this article was sourced.