Under-fire trusts agree to merge operations

Photo / NZ Herald

Two of the three pokie trusts targeted by regulators last week for alleged relationships with the trotting industry have agreed to merge, creating the country's biggest gambling society.

Takapuna-based Lion Foundation, already the second-biggest trust after the Wellington-based NZ Community Trust, will merge on January 1 with fourth-ranked Perry Foundation, based in Hamilton.

The merged operation will be called the Lion Foundation and will be run from Takapuna.

Although it will keep a Hamilton office, many of Perry's 27 staff are likely to lose their jobs.

Lion Foundation chief executive Phil Holden said there would be "significant operational savings" that would release more funds for community groups.

"There will be savings through less duplication of resources," he said. "There is an HR [human resources] process to work through. There is potential restructuring going on in Hamilton."

The merger is the latest in a series that has seen widespread rationalisation in the pokie industry in the past few years. Perry itself merged with Hawkes Bay trust Century in 2006, and with the Scottwood and Castle trusts in 2007.

Two Christchurch trusts, Eureka and Air Rescue Services, announced a merger last week.

Lion has also absorbed smaller trusts, but Mr Holden said the Perry deal was "the most significant one in the history of the industry".

"We anticipate that this will be a first step towards more consolidation and rationalisation," he said.

The Perry Foundation was founded in 1976, more than a decade before pokies were allowed in New Zealand, by the founders of the Hamilton-based quarrying and property firm Perry Group.

Simon Perry, who chairs both Perry Group and the foundation, said the foundation now ran three regional boards to allocate grants from pokie proceeds in Auckland, Waikato and Canterbury.

The future of those boards was yet to be decided because the Lion Foundation did not have regional boards.

Mr Holden said Lion had agreed to set up a grants committee for Waikato/Bay of Plenty, but would continue to use its staff to allocate grants elsewhere through its offices in Tauranga, Napier, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin as well as at Takapuna and the new branch in Hamilton.

Mr Perry said his family had established a new trust named after his father, the Brian Perry Charitable Trust, to continue the family's charitable work in the Waikato.

"We decided that the Perry family's interests were more regionally focused in the community where we have networks and interests, so we wanted to maintain that and allow the national side of it to be passed on to an entity focusing on a national scale," he said.

Both trusts expect to lodge appeals against the Internal Affairs Department's decisions last week to stop them giving grants to four trotting clubs and to close four of their pokie venues for 21 days because of alleged close relationships with the trotting industry.

Both trusts have denied any conflicts of interest.

TRUST MACHINES


* Lion/Perry: 3902


* NZ Community Trust: 2364


* Pub Charity: 1838


* Southern Trust: 987


* Trusts Foundation: 898


* Eureka/Air Rescue: 556


* Infinity Foundation: 414


* First Sovereign: 399


* Pelorus Trust: 387


* Endeavour Trust: 381


Source: Community Gaming Association, data for 30/09/09