Ambitious Jarden misses out on Kiwi Wealth

Sources believe Jarden had been planning to buy the unit of Kiwibank with global technology company FNZ and place it in a newly created joint venture.

New Zealand investment bank Jarden may have looked very different if it had not been pipped at the post in the contest to buy Kiwi Wealth.

Sources believe that the Kiwi financial group had been planning to buy the unit of Kiwibank with global technology company FNZ and place it in a newly created joint venture.

FNZ was previously part of Jarden but is now a global business that delivers investment platforms to financial institutions in 15 markets.

The talk was that Kiwi Wealth would have been held in a joint venture structure separate to Jarden, and at least part of Jarden’s wealth unit would have been sold into the venture.

Jarden’s wealth business based in New Zealand is believed to be highly lucrative for the company and a partial sell down would provide a healthy windfall for the group. FNZ would have the capabilities to rollout technology changes needed in the Kiwi Wealth business.

Jarden did not comment about the move on Wednesday when approached by DataRoom.

But sources say such a play would make sense, given that it has been on a hiring spree in the past two years, building its investment banking capabilities in Australia.

Already, Jarden has raised about $NZ60m ($54m) through a convertible note to fund near-term growth.

The raise came with talk that staff were offered scrip rather than cash for their bonuses, prompting some to threaten to leave.

About five junior members of Jarden’s NZ team were said to have left earlier in the year, with rising tensions over the workload allocated by the Australian team to New Zealand junior staff on lower pay.

Fisher Funds, backed by TA Associates, this month wound up paying $NZ310m for the Kiwi Wealth business that offers investment services through its KiwiSaver scheme, managed funds and private portfolio service.

Jarden launched into the Australian market in 2020, poaching high profile UBS bankers including Robbie Vanerzeil and Aidan Allen and Goldman Sachs banker Sarah Rennie, among others.

The launch to take on trans-Tasman rivals on the local investment banking scene was given the green light by Jarden’s board including chairman Bill Trotter and hedge fund operator and director David Copley.

However, Copley is understood to have resigned as a Jarden director earlier this year.