Winston Peters' infrastructure fund must be 'depoliticised' - investment expert
· RNZA proposal to introduce a $100 billion infrastructure fund is getting the thumbs up from a major KiwiSaver provider.
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters revealed his wishes for the "Future Fund" over the weekend, targeting multi-decade investment in infrastructure, ring-fenced to prevent political interference.
Simplicity managing director Sam Stubbs said the fund "fundamentally is a good idea".
Peters referenced the Republic of Ireland and Singapore as examples where similar funds were in place, and Stubbs believed they were good examples to follow.
"Effectively, what they have done is they've taken a lot of their key infrastructure assets and rolled them into a big fund, and they've raised additional money to do more," Stubbs said.
"The really important thing about that is you have a completely separate layer of governance over that fund, which means it's effectively depoliticised," he said.
In particular, Stubbs highlighted Singaporean government-owned investment firm Temasek, which invested in equities and also outright owned key infrastructure, including Singapore's Changi Airport.
Stubbs said New Zealand could follow a similar model.
"It should be done here ... by really rolling in a combination of the existing assets we already have, and the example might be the power companies."
Stubbs said the fund could then raise money to invest in long-term infrastructure decisions.
He said for it to be successful, politicians would have to stay out of decision-making.
Stubbs added KiwiSaver fund managers, such as Simplicity, would be interested in partnering with a fund if the government chose to go down that path.
"We're also long-term investors, so we would be ideal investment partners for the Future Fund," he said.