A boardroom reshuffle appears complete as 84-year-old South Canterbury goes through a massive restructuring and recapitalisation programme to secure its future.
Dunedin born and educated, Mr Baylis has in the past been chairman of Pyne Gould Guinness Ltd, PGG Wrightson and privately-owned Naylor Love Enterprises, and is at present also chairman of Real Journeys Ltd, a director of Landcorp Farming and Port of Tauranga, where he is chairman of the audit committee, and also several private companies.
Mr Baylis said in a brief statement yesterday the board was "committed to the turnaround" which he and the other independent directors joined the company to undertake last year.
"South Canterbury Finance is making solid progress towards rebuilding a sound financial footing for the future," Mr Baylis said.
Mr Baylis replaces South Canterbury founder Allan Hubbard, who stepped down to become president for life last month, while Timaru-based businessman and South Canterbury director Ed Sullivan also retired last month.
In October last year, Stuart McLauchlan, of Dunedin, and Denham Shale, of Auckland, and Mr Baylis were appointed to South Canterbury's board as independent directors.
In December 2009, distressed-company restructuring specialist Sandy Maier replaced Nigel Gormack, who was the interim chief executive who replaced Lachie McLeod after his departure a month earlier.
Mr McLeod's departure came after a year of compounding problems for South Canterbury.
While the company had doubled in size in five years, to at present hold about $1.8 billion in loans, in 2009 it reported its first loss since 1934, largely on the back of soured property loans.
Mr Maier, a Harvard Law School and Yale graduate, was brought in by the Government to be statutory manager of the failed Development Finance Corporation in 1990.
Since then, he has been a director or chairman of many New Zealand companies and organisations, including Bank of New Zealand and Mighty River Power.
Mr Baylis is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of New Zealand, Fellow of the New Zealand Institute of Management and Accredited Fellow of the Institute of Directors in New Zealand and is chairman of the institute's accreditation board.
