A rebooted trustee company is trying it luck in the NZ market after gaining a regulatory licence to operate late last year.
The Heritage Trustee Company, originally formed in 1998 by parties associated with the colourful Money Managers financial advisory group, hired former Public Trust head of client services, Lloyd Wong, as senior supervisory manager.
It is understood, Wong, who also consults on regulatory issues for Mercer, is leading the push to build a new client base in the tightly-held supervisor space.
Corporate trustee companies, now referred to as supervisors, are regulated under the 2011 Financial Market Supervisors Act.
Heritage earned its licence from the Financial Markets Authority last December joining a market dominated by just three firms Trustees Executors, Public Trust and Guardian Trust. The FMA also licenses two smaller supervisors: Covenant Trustee Services (owned by Guardian); and, Anchorage Trustee Services, which operates exclusively in the retirement village domain.
According to its licence conditions, Heritage can supervise both debt securities and registered schemes. Uniquely, the FMA licence specifies Heritage must maintain “a minimum net tangible assets (NTA) of $500,000 in cash and cash equivalent”. The FMA requires other supervisors to certify compliance with section 25 of the Act regarding “sufficient financial resources”.
Established in 1998, Heritage was formerly owned by then Money Managers chief, Doug Somers-Edgar. Somers-Edgar and wife Anne exited their Heritage shareholdings in 2010. Until February this year Heritage equity was split almost equally between Singapore-based entity, Viking Marine Management, and Australian company, Cargill Pty.
Last month Viking offloaded its share to Wellington-based Vaughan Stanley while Cargill retains a 51 per cent stake in Heritage. In February Heritage also appointed, Harold Titter, to the board to join Richard Hanna and Edward Russell. Hanna was named Heritage director last December when Colin McCloy and Christopher Darlow retired as board members.
Russell, who was with Calibre Asset Services when it served as trustee of the failed Money Managers First Steps funds, joined the Heritage board in 2014.