Tower flags move to Australia
New Zealand-based Tower concedes it will eventually move its headquarters to Australia, home to more than 70 per cent of its revenue and about half its shareholders.
"It's inevitable that at some point, Tower is going to have to re-domicile its business," managing director James Boonzaier told a press conference outlining the group's first profit figures as a listed company.
Chairman Colin Beyer went further, saying that Tower "clearly (has) got to make a move (and) I think we should move pretty soon to putting a timeline on it".
The dual-listed financial services group reported a net profit of $NZ99.7 million ($A78.1 million) for the 12 months to September 30, up 36 per cent on the previous year.
Funds under management grew to $NZ22.1 billion from $NZ15.8 million, due partly to the recent acquisition of IOOF Trustees and Bridges Financial Services.
About 77 per cent of Tower's revenue came from Australia in the past year, while about two-thirds of its funds under management is also based in Australia.
"The board's wrestling with [an Australian re-location]," Boonzaier says.
"It's getting advice from professional consultants."
The board is considering several factors, including tax and operational issues and the imminent merger of the Australian and New Zealand stock exchanges, which could enable Tower to get an index listing here, he says.
"At the moment we pay quite a lot of tax here in Australia. We're not able to give our shareholders in Australia the benefit of those imputations or franking credits. That is a real issue.
"Whether there are structural ways of getting around that, that's certainly being looked at," he says.
Moving the head office to Australia would be one way of doing that, "but that wouldn't necessarily be the best move for our New Zealand shareholders".
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