Paul Anthony (born 1955) is a Welsh senior executive who has operated in chief executive officer, executive chair and non-executive positions within the energy sector internationally, including in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

and

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

Life and career

Anthony was born in Wales. Anthony's career began in the UK electricity industry. His roles have included Executive Vice President of

British Gas Group BG Group plc was a British multinational oil and gas company headquartered in Reading, United Kingdom. On 8 April 2015, Royal Dutch Shell announced that it had reached an agreement to acquire BG Group for $70 billion, subject to regulatory and ...

(2000–2002), and a series of executive positions with PowerGen, which Anthony helped lead through the United Kingdom privatisation process in the 1990s. He worked with UK investment house

Doughty Hanson & Co Doughty Hanson & Co. is a British private equity fund manager focused on leveraged buyout and recapitalization transactions primarily of upper middle-market companies in Europe. The firm also invests opportunistically in European real estate and ...

and ran its wholly owned investment in LM Glasfiber. Anthony was founding chief executive officer of New Zealand's

Contact Energy Contact Energy Limited is a New Zealand electricity generation, electricity generator, a wholesaler of natural gas, and a retailer of electricity retailing, electricity, natural gas, broadband and Liquefied petroleum gas, LPG. It is the second ...

, leading the company from February 1996 until July 2000, including in the time of privatisation of the company in May 1999. His payout of NZ$6.6 million, which included a compensation for removal of a

golden parachute A golden parachute is an agreement between a company and an employee (usually an upper executive) specifying that the employee will receive certain significant benefits if employment is terminated. These may include severance pay, cash bonuses, ...

in his contract following privatisation, was unprecedented in New Zealand and drew criticism by the prime minister

Helen Clark Helen Elizabeth Clark (born 26 February 1950) is a New Zealand politician who served as the 37th prime minister of New Zealand from 1999 to 2008 and was the administrator of the United Nations Development Programme from 2009 to 2017. She was ...

. He was one of the highest paid executives in New Zealand. Anthony was chief executive officer of Energy Power Resources from 2002 to 2005, one of the United Kingdom's largest renewable energy companies. In October 2005, Anthony was appointed CEO of

LM Glasfiber LM Wind Power (formerly LM Glasfiber) is a Danish manufacturer of wind turbine blades, and a subsidiary of GE Vernova. History LM Wind Power was founded in 1940, as ''Lunderskov Møbelfabrik'' (Lunderskov furniture factory) in the small town Lun ...

. He left the company in February 2006 after accepting the offer by Australian energy company

AGL Energy AGL Energy Ltd is an Australian listed public company involved in both the generation and retailing of electricity and gas for residential and commercial use. It is one of the "big three" retailers in the National Electricity Market. AGL is ...

. Anthony became chief executive officer of AGL Energy with effect from 3 April 2006 and managing director on 1 May 2006. At AGL Energy, he oversaw an A$6b asset swap with Australian energy generator and retailer

Alinta Alinta Limited was an Australian energy infrastructure company. It has grown from a small, Western Australia–based gas distributor and retailer to the largest energy infrastructure company in Australia. It was bought in 2007 by a consortium i ...

, electricity provider Powerdirect Australia was purchased, and a large shareholding in Queensland Gas was acquired. In January 2007, he tried to talk rival power retailer

Origin Energy Origin Energy Ltd is an ASX listed public company with headquarters in Sydney. It is a major integrated electricity generator, and electricity and natural gas retailer. It operates Eraring Power Station, Australia's largest coal-fired power ...

into a merger, which industry insider labelled a takeover. As Origin Energy was a 51% shareholder of Contact Energy, analysts expected that a successful merger (or takeover) would be followed by a takeover of Contact Energy, at the time the second-largest listed company in New Zealand. The merger attempt was averted in May 2006 when the

Australian Takeovers Panel The Australian Takeovers Panel, a statutory authority of the Australian Government, is the primary Australian forum for resolving disputes about a takeover bid during the bid period itself. The panel is a peer review body, made up of part-time m ...

refused to issue a waiver to the directors of Origin Energy. Anthony was dismissed by the AGL board on 21 October 2007 after a significant reduction of the company's earnings outlook. In 2009, he joined as head The Matrix Green Air Fund.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Anthony, Paul 1955 births Living people Welsh chief executives Place of birth missing (living people)