Big Investments In Little Bank

Kiwibank’s announcement it will purchase Gareth Morgan Investments for an undisclosed sum is expected to bring high-net-worth investors to the New Zealand government-owned bank and improve its margins. Kiwibank Group, with around $14 billion worth of assets, is dwarfed by the four major Australian banks that dominate New Zealand’s financial landscape. “There are a whole lot of high net worth individuals that Gareth Morgan has on its books, who I would assume wouldn’t be Kiwibank customers so I would have thought one of the attractions would be firstly to get bigger in the wealth management … and the potential to cross sell their other services to these other clients,” Milford Asset Management analyst Anthony Quirk said. But the little bank is now making a play for a bigger share of that market.