Māori business services

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Kaua e noho ki te pūtake o te maunga, eke ki te tihi ki a whānui ake to tirohanga

Do not sit at the base of the mountain, climb to the peak to broaden your horizons

Our services / Nga wāhanga mahi

We have an established national Māori business team with a strong local presence, dedicated to delivering value to our Māori clients.

We work face to face - Kanohi ki te kanohi.

Our team has a diverse range of experience and skills that enable them to provide a range of services. We have some of the most experienced senior Māori staff and regional business sector advisors in the country.

The benefits of working with PwC include:

  • engaging a team who deal with regular emerging financial and strategic issues
  • working with people who have an understanding of Māori business, an appreciation of cultures and who are locally based and accessible
  • gaining access to solutions of issues faced by iwi and Māori throughout the country
  • being able to utilise the full range of business advisory services sourced from our national expertise, backed up by a global network.

Our services

Specialised industry knowledge

Māori are key stakeholders in the New Zealand economy and are influential in a number of important sectors including:

  • Education
  • Energy
  • Farming
  • Forestry 
  • Fishing 
  • Health
  • Housing
  • Local government
  • Property
  • Tourism

We will provide quality advice and thought leadership to meet the needs of Māori, Māori organisations, their asset base and people by drawing from the knowledge, expertise and experience of our specialist industry teams across the country.

Governance

The term “governance” relates to the steering, guiding and control of an organisation. Effective governance is a catalyst for the success of all Māori organisations. Three basic principles of effective corporate governance are:

  • Transparency – is management telling the Board what is going on?
  • Accountability – is the Board taking responsibility?
  • Corporate control – is the Board doing the right thing?

We equip leaders of many different Māori organisations to be effective in their governance roles, by providing training, advice and conducting reviews.

Strategic and business planning

Strategic planning is a complex decision-making process involving intuition, creativeness and vision supported by objectivity, logic, methods and analysis. To cope with change, an effective strategic plan should allow your organisation to: clarify long-term direction; formulate action plans; and enhance implementation strategies. 

Strategic plans in Māori organisations can have a much longer term horizon than other organisations due to their inter-generational focus and we’ll help you to navigate this complex process, by providing guidance around the capture and implementation of your strategic objectives.

Investment policies

The inter-generational nature of iwi and Māori organisations provides great opportunity to invest in longer term investments. But, there needs to be a balance between investing for future generations and meeting the needs of today. Māori organisations are being targeted as investors for many potential partnership and joint venture opportunities which need to be managed in line with their values and strategic objectives.

We help Māori organisations draft investment policy statements. These statements describe the key responsibilities of Boards of Directors and Boards of Trustees and how investments will be managed.

Dividend and distribution policies

Determining how to best spend and distribute funds including providing grants (often according to statutory or constitutionary requirements) is important and requires a different skill set and knowledge base than managing an investment portfolio. Ensuring that there are funds available for distribution is also important.

We help Māori organisations develop decision-making frameworks for the sustainable distribution of income to their people and associated group entities. We’ll provide you with simple and smart ways to better facilitate the distribution of funds including the development of a dividend or distribution policy.

Transactional advice / due diligence

It’s important for Māori organisations to consider how funds are invested. As part of any investment strategy, mergers and acquisitions may arise or business divestments may occur.

In order to have successful business acquisitions you should be fully informed of the key financial aspects of the business including understanding key performance drivers and financial risks. Planning for acquisitions and performing financial due diligence is also critical.

Strengthen your negotiating position and minimise the disruption to your business when making investments, by taking the front foot and addressing potential issues that a buyer may see.

By not performing thorough financial due diligence or adequately considering the risks of their investments, Māori organisations may see large financial losses, and negative effects to their iwi, hapū and whānau.

Mergers and acquisitions are a highly specialised and complex area. It’s critical to make the correct investment decision prior to an acquisition. Our professional financial advisors can help you make better informed investment decisions by providing transaction advice and performing financial due diligence on your behalf.

Commercial reviews

Commercial reviews of Māori organisations can be complex because of the diverse nature of their operations and investment portfolios, as well as the vast number of stakeholders, and cultural imperatives.

We provide Māori organisations with insights and recommendations on a wide range of areas including governance, financial health of business units, market commentary of various sectors, and the quality of underlying assets.

Business valuations, financial modelling and feasibility studies

At the forefront of innovation, Māori Orgnaisations are creating new paths in business, entering new markets and looking for pioneering opportunities to grow the assets of iwi, hapū and whānau. Converting these ideas and opportunities into dollar and value terms can be a significant challenge. However, the results are likely to be crucial whether that’s raising capital or debt, presenting as a business case to stakeholders or simply promoting “buy in”.

Our advisory team will help you with business valuations, financial modelling and feasibility studies that analyse and capture value. We thrive on the challenge of converting the most complex information into simple and understandable financial outputs, benefitting you and your organisation.

Executive support

Māori organisations and staff resources can be stretched at times, creating the need for additional capability that may include financial expertise and guidance at a managerial and strategic level. However, the related costs and finding the right people with a heart for kaupapa Māori can be a challenge. 

We provide support to Māori organisations in a range of ways including:

  • Virtual Executive and CFO services
  • Project management services
  • Secondments to provide financial and accounting services.

Audit services and technical accounting advice

The unique features of Māori organisations such as commercial redress, koha and Māori authority taxation require specialist technical accounting knowledge. The inherent values of most Māori organisations, which include kaupapa, tikanga and te reo, require additional understanding over and above that of a standard accounting professional in order to reach the right technical conclusions.

We tailor our services to ensure that we understand your organisation, its unique values, strategies and intergenerational aspirations to provide you with a fully informed opinion of your financial statements.

Given the depth of understanding,we are best placed to provide you with practical recommendations that strengthen your organisation’s financial and administrative platform.

Management and board reporting

We have the skills and expertise to develop tailored management and board reporting tools such as financial dashboards. By refining management and board reporting, we can deliver the following benefits to your organisation: 

  • reduce information overload
  • keep important financial and non-financial information front and centre
  • focus attention toward core objectives and strategy
  • ensure an accurate and relevant overview of performance and position.

Advisory services in the Public Sector

We provide advisory services to the public sector and central government across a range of portfolios that impact Māori including education, social welfare, health and economic development. We have been advisors for a number of key Government initiatives such as:

  • Whānau Ora
  • Financial Literacy and Savings (He kai kei aku ringa)
  • Māori Land Utilisation.

We can provide your organisation with a range of specialist services including:

  • financial monitoring of Crown entities
  • Public Private Partnerships (PPPs)
  • costing reviews for core government departments and machinery of government matters particularly Crown companies
  • infrastructure investment
  • economic modelling
  • policy development.

Structuring and tax advice

An organisation's business and investment strategy forms the platform from which it will grow and expand. So it’s important for its tax strategy to work in harmony with the broader business strategy, regardless of whether the focus is on company structure of risk management.

Maximising the benefits of the Māori Authority tax regime becomes crucial for Māori organisations, because of the focus on both commercial and social aspirations.

The objectives of Iwi and Māori organisations will also encompass the need to maximise the potential of their people through social and charitable activities. We’ll help you to consider these different objectives and apply a balanced approach, so the incidence of tax on funds used for social and charitable activities can be minimised or in some instances eliminated.

Treaty Settlement services

We’re committed to working with both pre and post settlement iwi. Our offices are located throughout the country so we can work with iwi and their representatives ‘kanohi ki te kanohi’ throughout the settlement process.

We can provide the following treaty settlement services:
  • Preparation and planning
  • Stakeholder expectations
  • Treaty settlement negotiation assistance
  • Navigating government relationships
  • Trust deed / AIP provisions
  • Structure considerations
  • Tax efficiency issues
  • Strategic and business planning
  • Vision and mission statements
  • Governance
  • Change / project management
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