Last month the
Capital Market Development Taskforce published its final report in which it made wide-ranging recommendations for the better functioning of New Zealand's financial system: see
here (
pdf). An executive summary is available
here (
pdf). Amongst the
research papers prepared for the Taskforce was one on the structure and ownership of New Zealand companies - available
here - which reports (to quote directly from its conclusion):
Relative to many other countries, even after adjusting for the relative size of our economy, New Zealand has few very large firms, and a considerable share of our largest firms are either government or co-operative owned, or controlled by offshore owners. In each of these cases, there is relatively limited participation in local capital markets".
