Te Tumu Paeroa, the Maori Trustee, has decided to invest in listed shares for the first time in its 92 years.
The trustee manages 2000 Maori land trusts with 100,000 hectares and has reached an agreement with Mint Asset Management to invest in funds it manages.
The trustee's funds management and commercial development general manager was not available to comment today.
However, Debbie Birch said in a statement that the organisation wants to diversify its investment portfolio to improve returns.
Ms Birch said Mint, which has more than $200 million in funds under management - making it one of the smaller players in that industry - was chosen from a short list of three because of its historical returns, corporate governance standards and investment strategy.
She did not say how much her organisation plans to invest in shares, but did say that its owner funds remain in conservatively managed fixed-income securities.
Te Tumu Paeroa's annual report shows its $89.6 million common fund achieved a 4 percent return in the year ended March.
Te Tumu Paeroa's net profit for that year fell 46 percent to $2.6 million, That was after its employee costs jumped nearly $1 million to $7 million and after it wrote off nearly $6.4 million of investments in associates.
