The past 12 months have been a period of active portfolio management and strategic repositioning for Quayside. While market conditions remained volatile, particularly in listed equities, the portfolio showed resilience, supported by best practice investment management, anchored in our key beliefs of asset allocation, diversification and long-term investing.
Key developments included:
- A renewed push into private equity, with commitments to three high-quality managers
- Continued rebalancing of the listed equities portfolio, which remains a key source of liquidity and performance
- Continued investment into high-conviction real estate assets, through partnerships with experienced developers including through Tauranga Crossing Ltd (TCL) and Panorama Towers Ltd (PTL)
- Introduction of a Reference Portfolio, as a total portfolio benchmark
- Enhanced engagement with the Port, Quayside’s anchor asset
These activities reflect Quayside’s evolving investment strategy, balancing liquidity, growth and long-term value creation.
Quayside now articulates its investments into three distinct portfolios, with varying risks and return profiles. Here we refer to the contents of each portfolio.
Port of Tauranga
Gross Assets:
$2,509m
Investment Portfolio
Gross Assets:
$470m
Special Purpose Assets
Gross Assets:
$161m
Port of Tauranga
The Port remains central to Quayside’s portfolio, both in terms of value and strategic importance. Over the year the Port’s share price rose 42%, outperforming the NZX50 by over 38.7%. This performance was underpinned by:
- Strong interim results and upgraded earnings guidance (FY25 underlying profit now $126m).
- Strategic activity, including the 50% stake in Northport via the acquisition of Marsden Maritime Holdings within a consortium consisting of the Port of Tauranga, Northland Regional Council, and Tupu Tonu. This was an important deal and a signal for where future investment will be made, bolstering northern infrastructure and supply chain capacity.
Quayside deepened its engagement with the Port’s executive team through site visits and strategic discussions, laying the groundwork for more active collaboration.
Investment Portfolio
Private Equity
Private equity (PE) delivered a steady performance in 2025 with a return of 4.6%, remaining well-diversified by geography, manager, and vintage; it was a focal point of portfolio activity with three new commitments to managers:
Pacific Equity Partners (PEP) Fund VII
AU$15m
A top-tier Australasian buyout fund targeting mature businesses with enterprise values between AU$200m –1.2b. PEP’s disciplined investment process and strong historical returns make it a valuable addition to the portfolio, offering scale and liquidity not typically available in NZ PE.
Waterman Fund V
NZ$11.5m
A follow-on investment with a proven and experienced NZ manager. Waterman’s prior funds have delivered exceptional performance, and Fund V continues the strategy of mid-market buyouts with active value creation.
Direct Capital Fund VII
NZ$7m
A commitment to one of NZ’s most experienced PE managers, further building out Quayside’s domestic exposure.
Listed Assets
Quayside maintains a number of public market portfolios. These portfolios are a substantial part of the Quayside business and play an important role in providing access to liquidity, global diversification and access to traditional defensive assets. Importantly, asset classes have important counter-cyclical characteristics.
These portfolios are diversified. Below is a summary of the specific portfolio performance against respective benchmarks for the year:
| Asset Class | Return | Benchmark Return |
|---|---|---|
| Domestic Equities* | 2.69% | 7.56% |
| Global Equities | 11.7% | 14.9% |
| Fixed Interest | 10.46% | 7.38% |
* It is acknowledged whilst the yearly result for Domestic Equities is disappointing as a result of share price movement of a number of key assets, we are very confident these will in time align more closely with our long term return in Domestic Equities which has returned an average of 8.2% over the last 5 years against a benchmark return of 2.7% over the same period.
Property and Real Assets
The Property and Real Assets portfolios enjoyed positive performances for the year. This segment of the organisation has both defensive and growth attributes, characterised by strong inflation-linked cash flows from rents and gains from value add and development activities. These portfolios delivered the following returns:
- Real Assets returned 20%. Largely a result of our investment into Huakiwi which on the back of strong crop returns and yields delivered a record dividend of $1.25m.
- Property delivered 3.2%. These returns were driven by:
- $4.7m of portfolio rental income for the year.
- Tauranga Crossing, a large regional shopping centre located in Tauranga, received a follow-on investment, with a further ~$25m invested to take our shareholding to 36%. The asset returned 25.6% for the year. The investment from Quayside was critical in funding an expansion at the centre increasing the size and scale of the property, ultimately driving earnings and the return number.
Investment Committee
This year, an Investment Committee was established to support the Board in managing the organisation’s investment portfolio. Its primary purpose is to ensure that asset allocation and investment decisions are made with the appropriate expertise and strategic focus. The Committee plays a specialist advisory role, reviewing investment proposals, monitoring portfolio performance and investment risk, and ensuring alignment with Quayside’s SIPO and Responsible Investment Policy.
The Investment Committee currently comprises three Quayside Board members – David Fear, Mark Wynne, and Fraser Whineray, and independent advisors Paul Duffy and Derek Janssen, selected for their investment expertise and extensive national and international experience.
Derek Janssen
Derek joined the Quayside Holdings Investment Committee in August 2024, bringing over 20 years of experience in international financial markets. He was a Portfolio Manager at Fidelity Investments, a global asset management firm with approximately USD $5 trillion in assets. Derek’s career began at Citadel, a major hedge fund, before moving to a firm focusing on small-cap investments. He holds degrees in Economics from Stanford and a Masters in Statistics from Harvard.
Paul Duffy
Paul Duffy is a seasoned investment and property executive with over 35 years of leadership across listed and unlisted entities in New Zealand and abroad. He has led IPOs (CEO/Director DNZ/ Stride Listing), capital raises, and strategic mergers — including Augusta Capital’s integration with Centuria. His governance expertise spans funds management, capital markets, and property development construction, underpinned by a strong track record of delivering robust investment returns.
KEY PERFORMANCE METRICS:
| Portfolio Return: | 6.5% | 1 Year |
| 7.1% | 5 Year Rolling |
| Asset Valuation: | $470 million |
After fees and internal cost allocation.
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