Former PGC building tenants back in the city
The staff of trustee company Perpetual Trust have moved to a new office in the city, four-and-ahalf years after the February earthquake toppled the Pyne Gould Corporation (PGC) building they were working in and killed colleagues.
It’s a fresh start for a very old company that is getting back to its roots under a new owner.
Six of the staff who were employed at Perpetual Trust, now called Perpetual Guardian after a merger with Guardian Trust, when the February 22, 2011 earthquake struck, are still with the company. Eighteen people were killed in the building on February 22.
Back then Perpetual Trust was owned by PGC but was sold 18 months ago to businessman Andrew Barnes, originally from the United Kingdom and now living in Auckland.
David Boyce is one of the six, but was lucky on that fateful day to be working in Auckland.
Now the southern regional manager for Perpetual Guardian, he said a good number of staff left after the earthquake and some jobs were shifted to Auckland.
‘‘I guess a lot of people decided to choose to do something else because that’s the way they got over the disaster,’’ Boyce said.
‘‘I think everyone is doing well in their own way. I have times when something jogs my memory and you go straight back to those times you had to deal with.’’
Perpetual Guardian’s 20 staff in the Christchurch branch celebrated the opening of their ground floor offices on Durham St North on Wednesday.
They are in a new three-storey building constructed by developer Richard Peebles, across from the District Court buildings.
It’s their fourth move in as many years.
After February’s tragedy they moved to the boardroom of rural services firm PGG Wrightson in Hornby, where up to 20 staff were crammed around the board table at times, and stayed there for about five months.
PGC owned a substantial stake in PGG Wrightson then.
They then moved to a building in Lincoln Rd, Addington, that was previously a car sales business and was fitted out as offices for PGC. They left there, Boyce said, in January 2014, for temporary digs in the Hazeldean Business Park further up Lincoln Rd near Hagley Park. Now they have returned to the central city.
Boyce told staff he was very happy the new owner had clarified what the business was about.
Previous owners had struggled with that.
It was a statutory trustee company and that was what it had been originally formed to be, he said.
A trustee company is a business which administers, manages and protects the assets of others for a fee. Drawing up wills and managing estates is a common part of a trustee business.
Perpetual Trust was formed in 1884. It was one of the last businesses sold by PGC in the break up of its financial services empire over 2009-2014.
Barnes is banking on growing the trustee services, the roots of the original business. He said 50 per cent of adults in New Zealand did not have a valid will.
‘‘First of all we are New Zealand-owned, we are New Zealand-headquartered and we are New Zealand-led,’’ Barnes told staff.
Both Perpetual Trust and Guardian Trust had historically been owned by overseas entities but it was now his business.
‘‘Because it’s my business I have a passion for it, ‘‘ Barnes said.
He wanted to pass it on to his 5-year-old son one day.
He had sunk nearly $5 million into the company in processes, premises, cars and equipment.
The business had 40 cars which meant its staff could go to customers and he had bought four digital businesses for a new way of connecting with clients, particularly the younger generation.
One of the those was lawyer Mai Chen’s online wills business called My Bucket List.