Squirrel plans to list

Home loan guidance and financial investment company Squirrel is contemplating a possible public listing next year.

President David Cunningham stated it was a possibility a long time in late 2027.

He stated instead of to supply financing for the company’s development, the main objective of listing would be to permit New Zealanders the possible to purchase a high-growth business.

“We’re too small for institutional investors generally, though I indicated we’re interested in talking to one or two cornerstone shareholders… it’s less about capital raising and more about the profile it gives Squirrel, which is already quite strong, the opportunity for New Zealanders to share in our success as a shareholder as well as an investor.

“If we proceed, it’s most likely to be a direct listing, which generally suggests the existing 300 investors’ shares are sort of noted and after that other New Zealanders might purchase shares in Squirrel.”

He said the business was profitable and paying dividends, and growing strongly in all market segments.

The business raised money from crowdfunding platform Snowball in 2015 and some staff also held shares, he said.

“When you note it, you understand, you have genuine cost openness. Similarly, we’re under no impression that we’re huge enough for the huge business like the Forbars and Jardens and Craigs to investigate us, you usually have to be worth sort of $300 million. And we’re most likely less than half that now.

“We’re well outside the NZX 50, for example… But, you know, we’d probably expect that one day we would be there.”

He stated Squirrel had really varied financing.

“Because we give access to mortgages, the largest asset pool in New Zealand outside houses, you know, everything’s on the bank balance sheets rather than something fund managers can invest in. We thin with the growth in KiwiSaver from $150 billion to $500 billion by 2040, providing mortgage assets that fund managers can invest in, but you need scale for them to be interested – that’s another opportunity.

“We have really couple of institutional financiers today, in truth, just one or more, just a couple of million dollars, however that will grow considerably. Having wholesale financing, which is like bank storage facilities, would be a huge essential part of our financing mix … we’re in the development of developing one as we speak.”

He said Squirrel had already taken care of many of the administrative requirements of a listing. “We’ve designated a brand-new board of directors previously this year … we have public and yearly report and have actually constantly been examined.

“It’s a complex process, but it’s just part of Squirrel’s evolution.”