Building societies plan merger

Press, 4 June 1982, Page 2

Building societies plan merger

The Canterbury Building Society, of Christchurch, and the Northern United Building Society, of Auckland, plan to merge' in a national group called United Building Society which will be New Zealand’s biggest building society.

The' proposed group will have 250.000 members and depositers. and have a staff of 500 people. In the long term about 50 jobs will be lost from the two societies; normal attrition rates are expected to account for most of the reductions. The new society will trade in two semi-autonomous divisions. Northern Region serving the North Island, and Southern Region serving the South Island. The head office will be in Wellington and the two regional boards will report to a national board. Messrs C. J. Tippins, of Auckland, and C. S. Jenkins, of Christchurch, will be joint managing directors.

The new combined group will initially have 81 branches, but 16 are close to one another and the total is likely to be reduced to 65. Mr Colin Jenkins, of C. 8.5.. said yesterday that about half the jobs lost by attrition would be in the South Island. At first they would be from branches, as the head offices would be too busy with the merger arrangements.

The 16 branches of the two societies to close would be obvious, he said. They were where there was duplication.

For the building society member, the difference would be a different name on the passbook.

“Our policies are very similar,” said Mr Jenkins of the two societies. This had made it easy to plan the merger.

The joint venture would not affect the amount of money lent in Canterbury. It

would still be relative to membership. The name, Canterbury, had not been a handicap in the North, said Mr Jenkins. In fact, its connotations in the minds of Aucklanders had been one of steadiness and stability, and this wwas helpful to a building society. The new United Building Society will have a network of 30 automatic teller machines, which will be progressively expanded as resources permit. The new society will hold about 2.9 per cent of the whole small savings market (the economist’s measure M 3) and provide about 7 per cent of all home finance. It will rank as fourth in size among those savings institutions which receive small deposits — behind the Post Office Savings Bank and the Auckland and Canterbury savings banks. Among all financial institutions it will rank eighth.