Payzone chairman burns midnight oil

One More Thing:Payzone chairman Bob Thian appears to have been burning the midnight oil, literally, in his battle of wits with chief executive John Nagle.

Thian sent an e-mail to board members, including Nagle, just past midnight on Monday morning to inform them that he had decided to postpone by one week a board meeting scheduled to be held in Dublin on Tuesday.

With Nagle and the company's board locking horns in the High Court, postponing the meeting was a sensible move.

But why leave it so late? Why not call it off on Friday night after the High Court proceedings were adjourned?

Whatever the merits of the decision, Thian's handling of the dismissal of Nagle and chief financial officer John Williamson also left a lot to be desired.

The two Irish executives say the first notice they received of their dismissal was by way of e-mail on the night of January 15th.

Trading in Payzone's shares remains suspended and the company's image has hardly been helped by this unseemly row. That's to say nothing of staff morale. This row needs a strong referee.

The most obvious candidate is successful Irish businessman Barry Maloney, who heads Balderton's operations in Europe.

Balderton owns 40.5 per cent of Payzone and is backing Thian.

But it also backed the Nagle-led management buyout of Alphyra in 2003, although relations between the pair have been strained in recent times.

He needs to find a solution and quickly.