Mar 15, 2008

Bernard Hickey On Auckland Airport

Bernard Hickey blogs about the decision by the New Zealand Superannuation Fund's decision to sell to the Canadians

Interestingly the CEO of the Cullen Fund, Adrian Orr, said the decision was made because it was the prudent and commercial thing to do, and avoided “prejudice to New Zealand’s reputation as a responsible member of the world community”.

Orr appeared to be saying he voted for the bid because he didn’t want the rest of the world to believe we were as xenophobic as the Cullen attempt to change the rules to block foreign investment made us look. The Super Fund pointed out that Orr was just citing the ”responsible member of the world community” element as one of the fund’s mandates that had to be followed. Hmmm. Interesting thing to point out.