It was announced today that Government-owned Orcon was sold off last Friday.
A group of NZ investors have bought it off SOE Kordia.
There’s been speculation since last year that it was being readied for sale (I’ve meant to write a post on it a number of times…). I think we might need an OIA into whether there’s a government agenda and pressure here.
Last October they merged with another Kordia offshoot (Kordia Networks), and shed dozens of jobs, including their call-centre moving to Manila. In theory this meant it was being pulled tighter to parent Kordia, in reality it was streamlining it for sale. In February Kordia CEO Scott Bartlett said he’d never get rid of the Orcon brand.
A lot of customers (including me) have noticed the significant drop in service this “streamlining” has entailed. Their call-centre in Manila has apparently sucked all their resources, leaving other support systems overloaded. Mistakes seem more frequent and more slow to be resolved. But no doubt costs are down, which looks good to a new buyer.
So we’ve lost another Government asset with merely an afterthought of a note to mention it. Kordia will no doubt return a bigger dividend to the government this year – giving a temporary boost to the books – as this government keeps selling golden-egg laying geese and making us all poorer in the long-term.
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