Trustee companies will be run separately: Complectus

Complectus managing director Andrew Barnes said as statutory trustees the two businesses had to be run in parallel unless there was a law change.

New Zealand Guardian Trust and Perpetual Trust will continue to be run as separate trustee companies despite coming under the same ownership.

New Zealand company Complectus yesterday said it had bought Guardian Trust from Australian listed financial firm Perpetual for $68.5 million.

Complectus is half-owned by Bath Street Capital which also owns 100 per cent of Perpetual Trust New Zealand. The other half of Complectus is owned by funds managed by Milford Asset Management.

Complectus managing director Andrew Barnes said as statutory trustees the two businesses had to be run in parallel unless there was a law change. But he said he would look at where the two businesses crossed over in back office operations.

"As part of this we will have to look at the two businesses and see where we go."

It was too early to say if there would be any job losses, Barnes said.

Perpetual Trust employs 60 people across five offices while Guardian Trust has 180 staff in 14 offices. Both companies have their head offices in Auckland.

Perpetual Trust suffered brand damage in the wake of the finance company collapses as it was the trustee company of many of those which went into receivership.

Barnes said the company no longer operated in the corporate trustee space and ran a purely private client businesses which revolved around wills and trusts.

Barnes said retail revenues from the private client business of Perpetual had barely moved over the last five years despite the company going through hard times including the Christchurch earthquakes where it lost staff and records.

Bringing the two companies together would mean there was more money for investment and scale to introduce new ideas to the New Zealand market, he said.