Wellington, Dec 5 NZPA - Fairfax Media chief executive officer David Kirk will be missed by the New Zealand arm of the business.

Mr Kirk, who was a former All Blacks captain, resigned as boss of the Australian media company today and is leaving immediately. He has lived in Australia for many years.

Fairfax Media shares surged as much as 8.7 percent after the announcement but eased back to be up 9 cents to $A1.58 ($NZ1.94) in afternoon trading, Reuters reported.

Joan Withers, chief executive of the company's New Zealand business, said she heard about Mr Kirk's resignation just before lunchtime.

Ms Withers said Mr Kirk visited New Zealand frequently and had been over three times in the last few months.

Mr Kirk chaired an advisory board for TradeMe, the online auction site Fairfax owns in New Zealand. He chaired a meeting of the board this week.

"He was very involved and he was always there for me personally," Ms Withers said.

"It will be business as usual, but obviously everyone in New Zealand knows David.

"We in the business know what a great leader he is, so he will be very much missed."

Fairfax has 18 business divisions in New Zealand. Its newspaper titles include The Dominion Post, The Press, The Waikato Times, The Manawatu Standard, The Marlborough Express, The Nelson Mail, The Southland Times, and the Sunday Star-Times and Sunday News.

There has been speculation that Fairfax is interested in a 39.1 percent stake being sold in rival media company APN News & Media Ltd, which publishes the New Zealand Herald newspaper.

But Mr Kirk said last month that: "We don't have any intentions with APN and we won't be part of the (sale) process."

Brian McCarthy has been named as acting CEO of the Australian parent.

Mr Kirk, who had been at the Fairfax helm since 2005, also issued a statement to end a period of speculation over his future.

"It has been a privilege to lead Fairfax Media during this period of great change and challenge for media companies all over the world," Mr Kirk said.

"A lot has been achieved and I thank especially the board and the many managers throughout the business who have contributed to the re-positioning of Fairfax Media for continued success in the future."

A Rhodes Scholar, Mr Kirk captained the All Blacks to their only World Cup victory, in 1987.

Fairfax chairman Ronald Walker announced the resignation but provided no explanation.

"During his more than three years in the role, David has been an outstanding CEO of Fairfax Media," Mr Walker said in a statement.

"He and his team have led the complete re-positioning of the company, from a metropolitan newspaper publishing business to a position in which the company is now clearly the leading media company in Australasia."

Mr Walker said Mr Kirk had helped operational improvements including cost reductions and achievement of all synergies from acquisitions as well as growth of circulations at the major metropolitan newspapers.

Fairfax said today that Fairfax Business Publishing was formally established this week. The company said it was New Zealand's largest business publishing unit.

It publishes The Independent, PC World, Computerworld, CIO, Reseller News, Unlimited magazine and youth publication Actv8. Fairfax said there had been some redundancies as a result of merging three separate businesses to create the unit.

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