Kāinga Ora – Homes and Communities
On the – virtual – ground with Kāinga Ora
Kāinga Ora – Homes and Communities (Kāinga Ora) held its inaugural virtual investor day on 19 August to showcase its role as a world-class public-housing landlord and leader in delivering urban-development projects. The goal was to explain the agency’s role to debt investors beyond the normal tenets of its funding programme.
Everything, all together, all the time
New Zealand is well ahead of the game when it comes to net zero transition in power generation, but many other sectors of its economy still have a long way to go to establish long-term sustainable foundations. Recent climate events, meanwhile, make it very clear that the time for delay has long passed. Speakers at the KangaNews-Westpac New Zealand Sustainable Finance Summit, which took place in Auckland in November, discussed the critical issues in the context of making sure the next step is action rather than fatigue.
Turning intent into action
In November 2022, KangaNews and Westpac hosted the New Zealand Sustainable Finance Summit as an in-person event in Auckland, for the first time since 2020. Speakers discussed the pressing need to turn good intentions and high-level thought into action on climate transition.
Kāinga Ora’s exit leaves a hole in New Zealand debt market
Kāinga Ora – Homes and Communities will no longer access funding in its own name, with the agency instead to be funded directly through the New Zealand government. Local market participants say the move is understandable though the loss of a programmatic agency borrower – with a leadership position in the sustainable finance space – will be a blow.
Kāinga Ora funding to be folded into sovereign programme
The days of Kāinga Ora – Homes and Communities as a standalone bond issuer are over as the New Zealand government announced on 11 November that the public housing agency’s future debt requirements will be funded directly by the sovereign, via New Zealand Debt Management.
First-mover advantage
New Zealand has become a test bed for monetary policy as the country became the first in the developed world to raise rates during the latest round of tightening. Participants at the third annual KangaNews-Westpac New Zealand high-grade roundtable discussed the context of local monetary policy and the funding outlook for local government sector issuers.
HIGH-GRADE ISSUERS YEARBOOK 2023
The ultimate guide to Australian and New Zealand government-sector borrowers.
