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Business valuations
We offer expert valuation advice in transactions, regulatory and administrative matters, and matters subject to dispute – valuing businesses, shares and intangible assets in a wide range of industries.
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Capital markets
You need corporate finance specialists experienced in international capital markets on your side if you’re buying or selling financial securities.
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Debt advisory
An optimal funding structure for your organisation presents unprecedented opportunities, but achieving this can be difficult without a trusted advisor.
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Raising finance
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Relationship property services
Grant Thornton offers high quality independent advice on the many financial issues associated with relationship property from considering an individual financial issue to all aspects of a complex settlement.
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Grant Thornton’s restructuring and turnaround service capabilities include cash flow, liquidity management and forecasting; crisis and interim management; financial advisory services to companies and parties in transition and distress
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Transaction advisory
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Virtual asset advisory
Helping you navigate the world of virtual currencies and decentralised financial systems.
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Corporate tax
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Grant Thornton’s advisers can help you with PAYE (payroll tax), Kiwisaver, fringe benefits tax (FBT), student loans, global mobility services, international tax
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Global mobility services
Our team can help expatriates and their employers deal with tax and employment matters both in New Zealand and overseas. With the correct planning advice, employee allowances and benefits may be structured to avoid double taxation and achieve tax savings.
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GST
GST has the potential to become a minefield and can be expensive when it goes wrong. Our technical knowledge can help you minimise the negative impact of GST
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International tax
International tax rules are undergoing their biggest change in a generation. Tax authorities around the world are increasingly vigilant, especially when it comes to global operations.
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Research and Development
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Tax compliance
Our advisers help clients manage the critical issue of compliance across accountancy regulations, corporation law and tax. We also offer business and wealth advisory services, which means we can provide a seamless and tax-effective offering to our clients.
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Mitigate tax risks and implement best practice governance that will stand up to IRD scrutiny and audits.
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Tax authorities are demanding transparency in international arrangements. We businesses comply with regulations and use transfer pricing as a strategic planning tool.
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Audit methodology
Our five step audit methodology offers a high quality service wherever you are in the world and includes planning, risk assessment, testing internal controls, substantive testing, and concluding and reporting
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Financial reporting advisory
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Cloud services
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Internal audit
Our internal audits deliver independent assurance over key controls within your riskiest processes, proving what works and what doesn’t and recommending improvements.
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IT advisory
Our hands on product experience, extensive functional knowledge and industry insights help clients solve complex IT and technology issues
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IT privacy and security
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Payroll assurance
Our specialist payroll assurance team can conduct a review of your payroll system configuration and processes, and then help you and your team to implement any necessary recalculations.
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PCI DSS
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Process improvement
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Project assurance
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Risk management
We understand that growing companies need to establish robust internal controls, and use information technology to effectively mitigate risk.
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Robotic process automation (RPA)
RPA is emerging as the most sophisticated form of automation used to help businesses become more agile and remain competitive in the face of today’s ongoing digital disruption.
New Zealand needs rental properties that give tenants a better experience, so let’s incentivise the creation of build-to-rent-communities, says Dan Lowe, Partner, and Property & Construction Leader.
Here in Aotearoa, we have a severe shortage of quality, affordable rentals. The good news is people are presenting solutions, but they need some impetus and support from the Government to deliver these large-scale developments.
Renting as a customer-centred subscription service
Renting should be a positive experience. Currently, renting in New Zealand means frustration and uncertainty; at any time, a landlord can ask you to move out because they’re planning to move in or sell. When you’re attached to your community or your kids are zoned for the local school, this can be devastating. In addition, rental properties are not always well managed or well maintained. As a result, Kiwis have an ‘ownership or nothing’ mindset.
Yet in other countries, renting works well. It’s affordable – much more so than home ownership. It’s reliable and tenants have certainty. Renting is like any other subscription service - you pay a fair price and receive a positive experience. Tenants can lease for life without being at a huge financial disadvantage because rents are affordable, and they have the option of investing the money saved by not owning a home.
Almost everything else in our lives operates on a subscription model, why not housing?
Build-to-rent communities need special treatment
Large-scale build-to-rent developments have the potential to provide tenants with the certainty they deserve. Simplicity and Kiwi Property Group are already dabbling in build-to-rent developments, and I see huge potential for these types of projects. By custom-building a community of renters, all living in a complex where the individual units cannot be sold, tenants can have peace of mind about tenure. They can also enjoy the security that comes with having a sense of permanence in a neighbourhood or community.
To be successful, these developments need alternative rules to the wider private rental market. There’s already separate regulations for other special types of communities – for example, retirement villages and student accommodation. Because each of these are designated as a specific asset class, the Government can set sector-specific restrictions and create different tax regimes, for instance. The same approach could easily be used for large-scale build-to-rent projects.
These communities can be more professionally run, with an onsite maintenance service making it a more liveable, pleasant experience for tenants, resulting in lower churn. This would help to keep rents down, because the complex would really be a commercial property proposition, not a residential one.
Incentives to increase our supply of rental accommodation
If a specific asset class were carved out for rental communities, incentives could be introduced to encourage more developments across the country. These might include tax incentives such as perpetual interest deductibility, claimable depreciation, or perhaps a specific approach to establishing the rights between the tenant and landlord – something separate from the Residential Tenancies Act and bespoke to this form of accommodation.
Whether they are subdivisions or apartment blocks, the construction of complexes like these would inject massive numbers of jobs and cash into our economy. Attracting major institutional investors would see a lot of money flow into New Zealand along with better accommodation for thousands of renters. Foreign pension schemes are always looking for solid investments, and this sort of asset class would have real appeal.
Of course, if the Government wants to get really serious about tackling the problem, it could get large state-owned enterprises to back build-to-rent developments – an ideal way to put some money directly into solving our housing crisis.
Longer tenancies, more scalability
Right now, private landlords are exiting the market because the numbers no longer work, primarily due to the recent tax changes. This is leading to a serious constraint of supply, driving up rents and making life even harder for tenants. Those mum-and-dad property investors are being incentivised to buy brand-new standalone houses further from the cities, creating urban sprawl which isn’t a great long-term solution for our renting woes.
Historically, there has been an almost unnatural Kiwi fixation on owning your own home. This same mindset isn’t apparent when compared with more mature countries around the world. Maybe we are at that tipping point where the next generation doesn’t place so much importance on this outcome, and are happy to rent and use their surplus income for alternative investments. This of course would only be a viable approach if there was stability in the renting market.
Accommodation should deliver a quality experience, at a reasonable price. In the same way you can have a Netflix subscription and own shares in the company, tenants could invest in the company that owns their complex. They would enjoy certainty of tenure, remain in the same community, and comfortably rent throughout their lives.
It would be an outstanding result for the future of the 35% of Kiwi households currently renting – a number that’s only likely to rise.
