{"id":579448,"date":"2026-08-25T03:30:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-25T03:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/579448\/"},"modified":"2026-08-25T03:30:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-25T03:30:11","slug":"kiwibank-makes-eleventh-hour-push-to-buy-tsb-as-community-efforts-to-stall-the-banks-sale-to-heartland-fail-in-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/579448\/","title":{"rendered":"Kiwibank makes eleventh hour push to buy TSB, as community efforts to stall the bank\u2019s sale to Heartland fail in court"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today, Kiwi Group Capital chairman David McLean doubled down.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have communicated our interest in TSB,\u201d he told the Herald.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a superior proposal ready for the trustees to consider and believe Kiwibank is the better partner.<\/p>\n

\u201cUltimately it is now a decision for the trustees to make, taking into consideration the community response and the support for the various options in front of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

At least 75% of Toi\u2019s trustees need to approve the Heartland deal for it to progress.<\/p>\n

If they do, Heartland shareholders will vote on the proposal on September 30.<\/p>\n

Provided the sale clears the appropriate regulatory hurdles, it will take effect in December.<\/p>\n

Community opposition carries no legal weight<\/p>\n

Coming back to the court case, High Court Justice Andru Isac dismissed Taranaki Community Accountability Society Incorporated\u2019s urgent application for an interim injunction to stall the sale of TSB to Heartland.<\/p>\n

In his judgment, made public today, Isac said the group\u2019s claims were \u201clegally and factually weak\u201d and in some respects \u201cuntenable\u201d.<\/p>\n

The group accused Toi of providing outdated, misleading and one-sided information during a consultation process it was required to undertake with Taranaki residents under its trust deed. <\/p>\n

Making its case in court<\/a> last Thursday, the group said Toi had engaged with other potential buyers, but entered into exclusive talks with Heartland in November. <\/p>\n

It wanted Toi to put various options to the community for how it could diversify its investments, beyond selling TSB to Heartland.<\/p>\n

Toi disagreed and argued that in any case, the group wasn\u2019t a beneficiary of the trust and had no legal jurisdiction to intervene without the Attorney-General\u2019s help.<\/p>\n

Justice Isac sided with Toi, saying the group \u201cfailed to establish a legal basis on which it has standing to bring its claim, or jurisdiction for the court to grant the relief it seeks\u201d.<\/p>\n

This aside, Justice Isac said Toi gave the community the right information. He noted there was a difference between Toi fulfilling its obligations and the group getting all the information it wanted to assess the commercial merits of the transaction.<\/p>\n

Justice Isac declined the group\u2019s request for Toi to cover its legal costs. While he recognised the group had pursued something important to the community with little money, he concluded it had \u201cnot established a seriously arguable case\u201d.<\/p>\n

Stepping back and considering the \u201coverall interests of justice\u201d, Justice Isac said it was rational for Toi to consider selling TSB. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhile it is understandable that a significant proportion of the Taranaki community would prefer that the bank remains wholly owned by the foundation, there is a financial trade-off from continuing ownership,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese competing and difficult questions are matters the Community Trusts Act and executive government have given to the trustees to resolve.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jen\u00e9e Tibshraeny is the Herald\u2018s Wellington business editor, based in the Parliamentary Press Gallery. She specialises in government and Reserve Bank policymaking, economics and banking.<\/p>\n

Stay ahead with the latest market moves, corporate updates, and economic insights by subscribing to our Business newsletter<\/a> \u2013 your essential weekly round-up of all the business news you need.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Today, Kiwi Group Capital chairman David McLean doubled down. \u201cWe have communicated our interest in TSB,\u201d he told…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":456105,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[806,1643,1396,9218,138,3167,1288,1259,23788,1349,13574,131401,121,209,86196,85915,33262,78,194,95012,5338,1446,111,139,69,13692,2738,15400,1133,24035,13422,132641,223,61,76405,285529],"class_list":["post-579448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-as","tag-bank","tag-banks","tag-before","tag-business","tag-buy","tag-capital","tag-community","tag-consider","tag-court","tag-efforts","tag-eleventh","tag-fail","tag-group","tag-heartland","tag-holdings","tag-hour","tag-in","tag-kiwi","tag-kiwibank","tag-makes","tag-making","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-offer","tag-owner","tag-push","tag-sale","tag-selling","tag-stall","tag-superior","tag-the","tag-to","tag-tsb","tag-tsbs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=579448"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579448\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/456105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=579448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=579448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=579448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}