Paul McBeth is the editor of The Bottom Line and Curious News, having worked at BusinessDesk for 15 years, two of which were under NZME ownership. His KiwiSaver has been with Milford Asset Management since 2014, and he’s owned shares of NZX since January 2024.
Much has been made of the frenetic pace Andrew Bayly took when launching into a raft of reforms to iron out some of the sticky problems besetting our tieless suits striding around Auckland’s Commercial Bay.
From the looser listing rules and disclosure requirements for listed companies, to the tweaks to KiwiSaver criteria making providers more comfortable investing in private assets, to the review of merger settings to encourage greater competition, to backing the acceleration of open banking – Bayly wanted it all and he wanted it now.
His replacement, Scott Simpson is no slouch when it comes to curly issues.
Acting as chief whip is no picnic – especially when public polls are going against you in what should still be the honeymoon of your first term.
And the Coromandel MP and former chief of the Make-A-Wish New Zealand children’s charity has taken on some chunky roles in his 13 years in Parliament, including chairing the select committee reviewing the Nats’ attempt to overhaul resource management law through the mid-2010s.
Definitely not a job for the faint of heart.
Simpson will have to hit the ground running and the ministerial shuffle has already thrown a spanner into the cogs of the government machine – don’t be surprised to see some slippage.
Unfortunately, he doesn’t have the luxury of taking a leisurely pace when trying to breathe life into New Zealand’s capital markets.
And there’s probably going to be a raft of things that won’t make it into the briefing to the incoming minister on how to prioritise his hefty workstream given the commerce portfolio’s headlines are typically limited to likes of BusinessDesk and the National Business Review – excellent publications that they are, but not necessarily the places to make or break political careers.
You might very well think that
At the top of Bayly’s leftovers for Simpson will be the May target for regulatory changes to make listing easier, giving prospective issuers more confidence to lodge their product disclosure documents and to join the bourse in the June 2026 financial year.
That timeline has already seen the nudges and winks get a little more obvious with Fonterra Cooperative Group doing more than pay lip-service to spinning out its Mainland consumer business and list it as a separate business, while NZME’s hired the energetic investment bankers at Jarden to run the numbers on its OneRoof real estate listings business – with fresh comparable multiples coming from the US interest in Australia’s Domain Group and News Corp’s REA having a go at London’s Rightmove.
That, in turn, might get Apax Partners rumbling about what to do with its six-year-old Trade Me investment – that’s an age in private equity years.
These are things that the NZX needs and Simpson hopefully will be listening.
We’re already staring at two likely delistings this year with the offers for Marsden Maritime Holdings and NZ Windfarms getting better odds than the low-ball bid for Millennium & Copthorne Hotels New Zealand by its controlling shareholder.
And there’s another in the works with the Overseas Investment Office granting a confidential approval in January pending a market sensitive deal – in the game of guess who, with the New Zealand dollar trading below 57 US cents, it could literally be anyone.
Plus, stock exchange operators around the world are getting more active in trying to stave off the drift towards the US, where the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq offer better valuations for would-be public companies.
Singapore’s government unveiled a S$5 billion programme to back fund managers to boost trading and research of local companies to drive up waning liquidity on the bourse, and is also offering tax rebates for primary listings in the Asian city-state.
Across the Tasman, Australia’s securities regulator is getting increasingly antsy about private markets and wants to shine some light on the sector, while also calling for ideas on how to make public markets more attractive.
UK regulators are coming under greater pressure to ditch stamp duty on shares to help revive the London Stock Exchange, while Hong Kong Exchange & Clearing is starting to reap the benefits of government stimulus from Mainland China.
Yes, Minister
There’s also weeding through the 44 submissions on a consultation to encourage KiwiSaver providers to delve further into private markets that will be near the top of the list.
But where Simpson’s attention might be drawn to is Bayly’s low profile letter to Retirement Commissioner Jane Wrighston last year, closing the book on the government’s response on the agency’s 2022 recommendations and tasking it with checking whether KiwiSaver is doing the job it’s meant to do.
The terms of reference for the Retirement Commission’s 2025 policy recommendations include looking at KiwiSaver’s default settings and contribution rates and to see who benefits the most from the government’s top-ups to the scheme. It also wants to know if KiwiSaver’s actually lifted the nation’s net savings rate and whether it’s created any distortions in the market.
If that triggers any lingering memories, don’t be alarmed. The Treasury wanted a wide-ranging review of KiwiSaver back in 2015 when the $1,000 kickstart payment – remember that? – was axed, arguing it represented poor value for money and its aims were overly vague.
Though to be fair, it’s rare to find a subsidy the Treasury hasn’t wanted to cut.
As Simpson settles into his new digs and starts poring over the reams of official documents to get him up to speed, it might be a little too hard for him to ignore one of the touchstones of a nation obsessed with property and superannuation.
Image from Adeolu Eletu on Unsplash.
