ECT's equity up by $21m

A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.

JUST days after investing $4.7 million to bring a new wood processing facility to Gisborne, Eastland Community Trust’s latest financial figures show the trust grew by more than $20 million last year.

The ECT annual report for the financial year ended March 31, shows the trust’s investments generated over $11.1m in earnings — $7.5m of which came from Eastland Group, which remains the trust’s largest single investment and accounts for 80 percent of its invested funds.

As the sole shareholder of Eastland Group, ECT received $7.75m from dividends and interest on capital notes, while the trust’s assets rose 7.8 percent to $21.2m.

The trust’s total equity rose $21.4m to $295m, helped significantly by one-off share gains made in the trust’s share portfolio.

General manager Leighton Evans said equity was now “well above the original $20m used to establish the trust in 1993".

Mr Evans said while trustees had been challenged by some beneficiaries to look at establishing a power rebate scheme, similar to those established by some other consumer trusts around the country, ECT would retain its focus on its distributions strategy, which accounted for $4.2m over the year.

Library upgradeThe largest single distribution was the $860,000 awarded to Gisborne District Council for the H.B. Williams Memorial Library upgrade. That distribution accounted for half the $1.62m distributed across the trust’s attractive funding pool, which made distributions to four projects.

In total, the trust awarded just over $1.1m to GDC over the year, including $68,050 towards the council’s regional facilities strategy and $200,000 for the council’s Makauri aquifer trial.

A total of $250,000 was distributed across 37 community projects from the trust’s positive minor funding pool, and another $599,359 distributed across 17 projects in the trust’s positive major pool.

There was $562,120 distributed across eight projects from the prosperous pool, including a $195,000 distribution to Gisborne Vintage Railway for restoration of the Muriwai rail line.

Chairman Michael Muir said “consistent” performance had been the theme for the trust throughout the year.

“The trust has successfully delivered in the key areas it challenged itself in. Over the past 12 months the trust has invested over $16 million into economic growth and community projects, compared to the previous year where we invested just $4 million.”

Mr Muir said beneficiaries, all Gisborne ratepayers, should be “well satisfied” with the outcomes from the year’s efforts.

Earlier in the year, ECT approved a $7.4m investment to purchase the Prime sawmill site, near Matawhero, with a view to creating a wood processing cluster that would create 120 jobs and inject $7.7m a year back into the local economy.

On Friday, ECT revealed it would invest another $4.7m to set up a joint wood processing venture at the site.

However, that decision was made in the (current) 2016/17 financial year, so was not included in the 2015/16 annual report.